Palace 0-3 Doncaster Rovers

So after having two full days to calm down I feel I am finally able to reflect on the game fairly and without any snap judgements. For instance I no longer have the urge to have every Palace player who played apart in Saturdays defeat put up against a wall and shot, which is probably good news for Simon Jordan as he has precious few assets as it is.

After going through the highlights again numerous times you can see we just didn’t get the rub of the green like we did last week against Watford and a keen Palace observer could see it wasn’t going to be from a very early stage. Last week we had two chances early on and scored them both, this week we had those same two chances but Neil Danns and the newly crowned player of the month Darren Ambrose inexplicably managed to miss both chances with the goal gaping on both occasions.

If we had gone 2-0 up we would have cruised to victory, as it was, a potent mix of lacksadaisical defending and ruthless finishing left us 1-0 down just before half-time. A big performance was needed after the break and just as we looked really fired up Donny hit us with a sucker punch on the break and the player’s collective heads dropped. The final twenty or so minutes must have been torture for those in the ground as James Hayter smashed home their third of the afternoon but the score line flattered them. Julian Speroni had nothing to do for the whole ninety minutes except pick the ball out of the net so as Mr Warnock say’s we will just have to “Take this one on the chin” and remember the performance last week and all the good things that have taken us to within striking distance of the play-offs.

Even opposing manager Sean O'Driscoll admitted that his side rode their luck on the way to victory: "I thought we were excellent. Palace are a difficult team to defend against and we took our chances well. In this division you need a little bit of luck and we took it."


Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither was it destroyed in a day, so fans will have to keep some perspective (including me) when the lads have a stinker, take it on the chin and just accept that that is what Supporting Palace means. Even if we are less Rome more and more Pompeii at the moment with our finances.

I wouldn’t bet against a good result against Reading on Tuesday and a much improved performance, it’s a certainty Warnock won’t allow a repeat Saturday.

Here’s Hoping!