Palace 1 - 0 Watford

Saturday December 9 2000 - League

Crystal Palace extended their unbeaten run to ten games with an excellent 1-0 win over high-flyers Watford at Selhurst Park today.

The only goal of the game was scored by Clinton Morrison on 61 minutes.

There were chances for both sides in the first half. Hayden Mullins and Morrison came close for the Eagles, Tommy Smith and Tommy Mooney had big opportunities for the Hornets, but found Palace goalkeeper Alex Kolinko in their path.

Palace's Tommy Black also saw his shot cleared off the line by Mooney.

Sixteen minutes into the second half, it was Morrison who opened the score with his 13th goal of the season.

Watford then tried all they could to find an opening in the Palace defence, but the Eagles stood firm.

Dougie Freedman had a very big chance to make it 2-0 in the dying seconds, but Hornets keeper Epsen Baardsen made an outstanding save.

With this win, Palace climbed to 12th place in the Nationwide Division One, while Watford are fifth after five successive defeats.

Post match comments

Alan Smith praised his team after the unbeaten run continued as he arrived at the press conference with a pair of boxing gloves.

He said: "I made the players spar with these gloves for the last few days. I did it because I knew our match against Watford would be a fight.

"Clinton will get better and better and I will be disappointed if he does not win an Under-21 cap before long.

"I think Graham Taylor is one of the best managers in the past 10 years.

"It's brilliant to beat Watford, it just shows how far we have come in the last 20 weeks.

"We are playing as a team these days, my players worked very hard today and we're definitely heading in the right direction."

Watford boss Graham Taylor said: "We have two or three players who are lost and it's shown in the result. We're going through a losing run at the moment so we need to work that bit harder to get through it.

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