City 3 Crystal Palace 0
Report by Eddie Blount
Returning City manager, Nigel Pearson, might have hoped for an easier start than Crystal Palace, three points above us in the table despite having sold their last year's Player of the Season, midfielder Danns, to City in August. On paper this should have been no contest with Danns only able to find a place on the City bench but these things never work out like that and for more than an hour this was a very close contest indeed.
The first half saw neither side impose a firm grip on the game and there were few chances. For City King's header from the excellent Peltier's cross was well saved by Palace keeper, Speroni, and he did even better to push a wicked, bouncing, long-range effort from Paul Gallagher round the post – a quite magnificent save!
Apart from this not too much goal-mouth action. However there were strong indications that City under Pearson will play a different style from that favoured by Sven. We played at a much faster tempo and got the ball forward much quicker in a 4-4-2 formation which included Dyer and Gallagher as wider midfielders.
There is always a danger that this will degenerate into long punts forward to the front two but this did not happen with any regularity and no one missed the 500 passes to make minus 10 yards so beloved by Sven – what a First World War general he would have made! It was also evident that both fullbacks got forward at every opportunity. Konchesky has been doing this all season but now Peltier did his fair share also. No coincidence that these two have been among our most consistent players in this campaign to date.
The second half started in similar vein to the first and as always the opening goal was likely to be decisive. Gallagher struck another bouncing shot from outside the box which Speroni again pushed round the post and the crowd temporarily forgot their frustration with Gallagher after twice losing the ball unnecessarily in midfield and leaving us open to swift counter-attacks. If you think there's rather a lot about Gallagher in this piece you ain't seen nothing yet!
The breakthrough came on 55 minutes and much of the credit goes to Konchesky who did what few others in the side can do – he ran swiftly with the ball! Surging forward from half-way he closed in on the penalty area before passing to Wellens who laid an immediate well-judged pass into the path of Beckford who scored with a cool finish past Speroni.
This sparked a prolonged attempt by the Eagles to restore parity and City had to defend desperately as Palace had their best spell of the match. They missed a golden chance to equalise when Schmeichel stopped a header from point-bank range when it seemed easier to score. This, plus occasions when the ball went just wide, kindled the feeling that it was not going to be Palace's day.
Beckford might have put them out of their misery when he intercepted a defender's poor pass on the halfway line and ran in on Speroni only to shoot tamely at the keeper as the chasing pack closed in. Nugent would have scored!
Within a spell of under 4 minutes the game was decided with two of the finest goals you could wish to see. Cue Gallagher! First he picked up a pass in a central position some 25 yards out and decided that having had two sighters he could be third time lucky. Bingo! The ball curled deliciously past Speroni into the top right-hand corner for a picture goal.
This was however merely a starter and the main course was even better. Gallagher was again in the centre of the park, some 30 yards plus from goal when the ball ran invitingly to him. No doubt buoyed by the confidence of his first goal he struck as clean a shot as you could wish to see. The ball arrowed into the top left corner and was still rising as it hit the net – a wonder strike which Gallagher said afterwards he had never felt as he hit it.
So with 15 minutes to go the 22 500 crowd had the luxury of being able to watch City with the points in the bag – a rare pleasure! We were also able to reflect on three excellent goals scored ironically by the players who arguably made the least overall contribution. But as we all know there is no substitute for being able to put the ball in the net as Palace acknowledged afterwards.
We should nonetheless remember that this was a closer game than the scoreline reflects. One wag close to me suggested that the reason we won was that Palace failed to take the chances they created and that we did take the chances that we didn't create! Some truth in that though City's opening goal was the best pure attacking move of the whole game and we deserved the points for that alone.
City: Schmeichel, Peltier (Abe 76), Mills, St Ledger, Konchesky, Wellens, King, Dyer, Gallagher, Nugent (Howard 74), Beckford (Schlupp 74)
Palace: Speroni, Clyne, Wright, McCarthy, Gardner, Moxey, Parr (Martin 61) , Dikgacoi (Scannell 61), Jedinak, Zaha, Murray
The views expressed in this report are the opinions of the Trust member nominated to file the report only and do not represent the views of the Foxes Trust organisation