There was a knock on the door at around 6pm and when I answered it was Maty Scholar. “Oh no” I thought. “He’s coming to football with us again!” I had only just about recovered from Saturday’s session with him. I didn’t fancy a drink anyway and besides I had to get those Sheffield Wednesday tickets. Sharon very kindly gave her ticket to Max again but in doing so missed a cracking game, you can’t beat football under floodlights.
Crystal Palace have been on an indifferent run lately and with automatic promotion now out of the window came to Portman Road trying to cement their place in the playoff’s. Ex Blue Damien Delaney was captain on the night and won the toss, he chose to make us kick towards the SBR stand in the first half which pissed me off at the time, but turned out to be very noble of him as we got to see all of the goals and celebrations up close!
Palace started the match on the front foot, they came at us with pace and good movement off the ball. In truth we didn’t look up to it until Richard Stearman's superb tackle on Jonathan Parr which changed the complexion of the half. Whilst Parr (who later had to be substituted) was receiving treatment Mick McCarthy was able to reorganise his side. Things really looked up in the thirty-seventh minute when Eagle’s keeper Julian Speroni made a hash of clearing Guirane N’Daws ball over the top, dwelling on it rather clear it up the pitch. He had failed to take into account Frank Nouble’s blistering pace and was shocked to see the Ipswich forward nick the ball off him, Nouble took a touch, readjusted his posistion and neatly passed the ball into an empty net with his favoured right foot. We’ve become use to that type of goal being scored against us over the past few seasons which made the goal even sweeter.
Nouble was swamped by his teammates as he celebrated his first Town goal, even sub Antony Wordsworth who had been stretching out by the corner flag sprinted over to join in.
The place was buzzing after that and as the game went into five minutes of stoppage time the noise levels and excitement were about to go up a further notch or two. Firstly Aaron Creswell scored what will surely be the goal of the season, an unstoppable half volley from twenty five yards into the top corner of Speroni's net. Then from the restart Nouble dispossessed Peter Ramage midway in his own half and calmly slotted the ball under Speroni to end an unbelievable few minutes.
Shell shocked, Palace brought on veteran Kevin Phillips for the second half and quickly got at the Blues. Scott Loach made an excellent save from André Moritz's free kick after fifty five minutes, he got across to punch the goal bound ball out wide for a throw-in. We had to dig in and really defend as a team, nobody illustrated this more than Daryl Murphy who really put in a good shift. Palace came close to scoring towards the end of the game when Phillips saw his shot hit the post after he had picked up a rebound from another excellent Loach block.
I had said at halftime as bizarre as it may sound that I thought that we might need a fourth goal to win the match, how wrong was I? It was obviously to be our night, somehow we kept yet another clean sheet, the tenth in fourteen games. Now incredibly we are up to thirteenth in the league with three games left to play and five points clear of the drop zone. Although we are not mathematically safe yet, we're not going down!
 |
| Let the banter begin, JET & Frank Nouble commiserate with Palace's Yannick Bolasie after winning the bragging rights. Is Richard Stearman about to put him in his pocket? If you don't understand watch their keeks! |
 |
| The Luke Chambers fist pump |
The playlist
Reasons To Be Cheerful (Part Three) by Ian Dury And The Blockheads - how many more do you need?
No comments:
Post a Comment