December 9 2008

Shefki Kuqi

Crystal Palace convincingly sweeped past Southampton to make it 2 wins in 3 days with a 3-0 victory, writes Simon Pophale.

Neil Warnock kept the same team at beat Derby and it took only 5 minutes longer than at the match at Pride Park for us to take the lead.

Nathaniel Clyne sent over a cross and Shefki Kuqi, chested the ball down and with a quick look and a cheeky lob, beat Kelvin Davis to put us ahead.

In what was a remarkably open start by both teams, we were having the better of possession against an inexperienced Saints team and on the 15 minute mark, we notched our second.

A corner from John Oster was knocked back to the edge of the area by Jose Fonte and Craig Beattie arrowed a shot into the top left hand corner from 15 yards. 2-0 and we were beginning to run riot.

Kuqi sent a looping header over the bar on 18 minutes with the Saints defence yet again all at sea.

The forward line of Beattie, Kuqi and Scannell was causing Southampton all kinds of problems, Beattie’s runs from deep often resulting in the on-loan man being fouled or Kelvin Davis being tested.

It took Southampton a full 30 minutes before they managed to have any meaning shots on target, Julian Speroni saving easily from a Jordan Robertson effort.

This coincided with Ben Watson being replaced by Shaun Derry and while Southampton slowly crept back into the game, the defensive partnership of McCarthy and Fonte stood firm, blocking anything and everything that got in their way.

Never was this more evident with Bradley Wright-Phillips played in Adam Lallana and Fonte made the perfect sliding tackle to deny the midfielder.

Nick Carle sent a shot over with 5 minutes of the half to play and Clint Hill picked up a booking, in what was the only low point of the first half.

As so often happens, the 2nd half was in marked contrast to the 1st. Southampton came back out reinvigorated and for 15 minutes, desperately tried to get back into the match. Their best chance came on 57 minutes, when Surman lobbed Speroni but as the ball bounced towards the goal, Fonte was there to clear to safety.

We slowly began to dominate as the half went on and Warnock brought on Ifill on 65 minutes to liven up the attack. It was a move which was rewarded with a goal 10 minutes later.

Julian Speroni sent a trademark goal kick down field and Lloyd James mistimed the bounce which saw Ifill nip in front of him and despatched a shot past Davis into the roof of the net to kill the game on 75 minutes.

We could have had a 4th at the death but for a close range Davis save from Beattie but this was a comprehensive performance which saw us move into the playoff positions and left Jan Poortvlet with a long cold winter ahead.

Palace: Speroni, Clyne, McCarthy, Fonte, Hill, Carle, Watson (Derry 30), Oster (Butterfield 48), Beattie, Kuqi, Scannell (Ifill 66).

Not Used: Lee, Moses.