Crystal Palace 0 - West Bromwich Albion 2

Summary:

Albion turned the formbook on its head and all but secured Premiership survival thanks to a deserved win over Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park in front of over 30 coachloads of supporters taking advantage of free travel. Victor Anichebe was recalled to the starting lineup at the expense of Brown Ideye, who dropped to the bench.

James Morrison gave Albion the lead in just the second minute when he headed home Chris Brunt's left side corner kick, and Craig Gardner made it two in the eighth minute of the second half with a superb strike from 31 yards out.

Both sides had a good penalty claim turned down, and Palace managed to get the ball in the net but the goal was immediately ruled out for offside.

The win puts them on 36 points and into thirteenth place, highly likely to be enough to ensure a survival that looked doubtful just before Christmas.

Mark Koppel:

What a relief and well deserved for two main reasons.

One the players said they worked extremely hard in the week in training to correct the recent failings.

Second Pulis did his homework very well.

• Myhill 7 - Probaby his best game for West Brom. Stopped shots this week unlike before.
• Dawson 6 - Helped out massively by Morrison but credit when due as he was also up against the PL's in-form winger.
• McAuley 6 - Back to his best defending and blocking. Let's hope again next week someone doesn't tell him he is Beckenbaur.
• Lescott 7 - Commanding in everything he did. Measured distribution when passing forward as well.
• Brunt 6 - Great corner for the first goal and dealt with Zaha quite well.
• Gardner 8 - Not only goal of the season but helped out Brunt in defence as well.
• Morrison 9 - Player of he Season by a country mile. In addition to his goal really helped Dawson in defensive duties.
• Fletcher 7 - Great holding midfielder performance.
• Yacob 4 - Too slow for the PL.As a result gave away lost of stupid fouls and jumped in again with feet off the ground that he just about got away with.
• Sick Vic 7 - Did 90 mins, yes 90 mins and was even chasing down defenders at the end of the match. Linked well with Saido and almost(but only almost) got his first away gaol.
• Saido 7 - Battled really hard all game. Had to live off bits and his 2 chances second half were created by his own efforts.

Subs-

• Wisdom 2 - No better than first half of the season. Crosses started to rain in when he came on.
• Baird 4 - Blocked one cross when Wisdom disappeared in to middle but otherwise did little.

didge:

I only do the occasional away games with my son these days, but our track record is good. The most recent being draws at Stoke, Tottenham and Man U and yesterday. Maybe we should do more!

From what we saw from behind stanchion, this a very similar performance to that against Leicester. We gave away possession often and defended on the edge of our own box. Except this time Anichebe gave us an "out ball" and had an excellent game and we didn't make individual errors.

Morrison maintained his very high standards and we thought Fletcher offered leadership and organisation, before flagging in the second half. Qualities we have been lacking for a good while. Dawson comes in for a lot of criticism, but showed here he can perform at this level. He had to cope with wingers in fine form and put in a solid display. It was noticeable how much more vulnerable we looked when he went off.

Pulls has done a great job to get us basically safe with a weak and unbalanced squad. It will be interesting to see how we shape up next season when he has more input on recruitment.