Palace 0 - 1 Derby County

Tue Sep 17 2002 - League

Derby County left Selhurst Park in a smash and grab raid to claim the three points in a late 1-0 victory.

The visitors came for a point and hardly deserved all three especially after Palace's first half performance.

Match Stats

Ground: Selhurst Park (Attendance: 14948)

Palace: Kolinko, Fleming, Popovic, Powell, Granville, Thomson, Butterfield, Mullins (Black 68), Routledge (Adebola 74), Freedman, Johnson (Frampton 80).

Subs not used: Rubins, Cronin.

Bookings: Granville, Thomson.

Derby County: Poom, Barton, Higginbotham, Riggott, Boertien, Morris, O'Neil (Hunt 51), Murray, Bolder, Kinkladze (Evatt 88), Christie.

Subs not used: Strupar, Grant, Twigg.

Goal: Kinkladze 83.

Bookings: Bolder, Hunt, Murray.

Referee: P Dowd (Stoke-on-Trent).

The Eagles were looking solid at the back but lacked any finishing touch up front.

Andy Johnson had two snapshots saved and then Dougie Freedman somehow put Danny Butterfield's left wong cross over the bar from a few yards out.

On 17, Johnson was unable to stretch far enough to connect to Danny Granville's left wing cross.

Johnson, Freedman and Wayne Routledge were combining well together and were causing the Derby defence problems, but the Rams held firm.

Midway through the second half, Trevor Francis brought on Dele Adebola and Tommy Black in a bid to get the goal.

Granville was shown an undeserved yellow card on 70, after Malcolm Christie threw himself to the floor when clean through and decieved the referee.

In the 75th minute, Giorgi Kinkladze wasted the best chance of the game when he had just the keeper to beat inside the box and should have shot but he went to pull it back and a Palace defender cleared it away.

In a bizarre defensive move, Francis brought on Andy Frampton for Johnson, pushing Granville to left wing and the change seemed to totally unsettle the defence as Derby scored.

With just eight minutes remaining, Lee Morris broke down the left, Darren Powell committed himself to the challenge which he completely missed and he pulled it back for Kinkladze to score and return to the Midlands with the victory.

Palace can't rely on Freedman for the goals and badly need a partner who can get the ball on target and score.

Post match comments:

Trevor Francis said: "There was a defensive mistake by Fleming and we got caught by a good finish from Kinkladze, which gave Derby an undeserved victory.