With the usual spice added by the presence of Tigers legend Peter Taylor on the opposition bench, a poor Palace side are allowed to take a late lead before a later penalty seals a City point.

It was suggested a few weeks ago in the match report against Stoke that simply reposting last seasons match report would be a reasonable representation on the match given the similarities.

Let me see, for them Peter Taylor is the manager – check, Cort starts – check and Green on the bench getting booed by a section of the tiger support – check. Also Palace take the lead – check, sit back and concede a late equaliser – check.

Stopping the copy and paste from On Cloud 7, City started with the following

Myhill
Ricketts Turner Brown Delaney
Garcia Marney Livermore Pedersen
Okocha Windass

The early exchanges in the game saw probably a reversal of last season with City playing better football whilst Palace seemed to have gotten worse over the summer. However an early Palace attack could have proven worse for us. A soft Delaney challenge on Soares just inside the area sees the Palace winger go down with his penalty appeals ignored by referee Beeby, who had quite a good game yesterday.

City’s first chance came with a long ball in the centre circle by JJ, releasing the increasingly mobile Pedersen down the left wing. A cross is blocked for a corner before the short corner routine we’ve been using a lot recently sees the resulting cross cleared.

Palace's corner routines seem to match ours of a few seasons back. After Turner conceded a corner to Butterfield, the resulting cross was aimed at Cort and claimed by Bo.

A couple of corners for City, won first by Pedersen and then Garcia are first cleared and then see the ref blow for hand ball. Soon afterwards the rather peripheral Okocha is replaced up front by Hughes. I don’t recall seeing Okocha injured in the game, so suppose he must still be struggling with the injury that kept him out of the Charlton match. Soon after the substitution, Marney is fouled in the centre circle, but the ref plays the advantage as Windass takes possession before switching the ball across to field to Pedersen whose attempt on goal is knocked for a corner.

After another Palace chance where ‘the expensive man's Craig Fagan’ Paul Dickov shoots wide from the left of out area, a long ball to the edge of our area sees Turner foul one of theirs. The free kick, taken by Watson is cleared by Pedersen to Garcia, where Watson back-tracks in time to foul Garcia. With Ricketts gaining possession, the ref once again plays the advantage before crossing to Windass just outside the area to blast the ball over the pony-tailed Speroni’s goal. With the ball out of play, the ref then goes back and books Watson for the challenge on Garcia.

Shortly before the half hour, Marney and Pedersen combine, with Delaney free on the left, Marney elects to shoot from 20 yards which beats Speroni, before hitting the post. City then win a corner which is played to the edge of the area to Delaney, his air-shot however would be more trouble to Myhill than Speroni.

A very poor two footed challenge by Livermore sees us concede a free-kick, with the ref choosing to keep his cards in his pocket. From that, Hudson advances with the ball, but his long shot is easily caught by Bo.

Forgetting his earlier chance, a cross by Garcia has Delaney try a bicycle kick, which easily missed the ball.

After Livermore concedes a corner, the Peter Taylor textbook signal routine is used. A 1 handed signal sees the ball hit to the front post before being put behind by Brown. A second corner is then signalled with 2 hands and hit to the back post before Garcia clears.

A prolonged period of City pressure sees Delaney advancing up the left wing with Pedersen dropping to cover at left-back. Before crossing to the right angle of the box where Ricketts is seemingly tripped whilst the ref waves play on.

Some peanut hugging news on the scoreboard has a number of City fans chanting “In-gur-lund”, before Palace win a free kick 25 yards out. This is quickly taken but with us ready to clear the ball they concede a free-kick as half time is called.

Half time started with the speakers playing “Sweet chariot”, presumably due to the England victory over Australia. Don’t get me wrong, I am from West Hull, but I always through the “Red, red robin” is more appropriate to the oval balled game. The rest of the half time ‘entertainment’ saw a rather poor Freddie Mercury impersonator receive a rousing “You’re not very good” from the City support, followed by an odd mascot race that I don’t understand what went on. But given we had Roary out there and they has 2 eagles – what in the world has a spitfire have to do with Palace?

Into the second half where once again the 3 City midfielders of Hughes, Marney and Pedersen link up well together to control the midfield. This combination released Hughes and a ball across to Marney sees him pull up when I thought he could have easily gained possession. Again this group releases Ricketts down the right with his cross to Windass headed back out by Cort before the returning cross is hit well over Deano’s head.

A rather desperate Myhill dive blocks the long shot by Martin (and it’s not without irony that one of the worst players I’ve seen play professional football went by the name David Martin when we played Northampton many years ago, as the Palace version looked quite poor throughout the game)..

City continue to keep the pressure on Palace. Pedersen on the angle of the 6 yard box plays the ball back to Marney at the edge of the area, but his soft shot is easily claimed by Speroni. Then a cross from the left sees Windass concede a free-kick having challenges Speroni a little too hard.

Even more good work is done by out midfield grouping and on 2 occasions releasing Garcia. The first is off-side with the second winning a corner, from which Palace get a free-kick as Windass goes down.

With the initiative firmly in City’s favour, Taylor tries to freshen his team up with Dickov and Watson replaced by Morrison and Green. The latter receiving chants of “You should have stayed at a big club” from the City following.

Green's first impact on the game sees Livermore foul him from behind with Dave getting booked. The big irony is this prompts the Palace fans to start singing “You dirty Northern bastard” towards our London born midfielder whilst the Carlisler received treatment. The Palace set piece is once again hit towards Cort and his header is again held by Myhill.

Another rather peripheral figure in the Tigers side, Windass is then replaced by McPhee.

Morrison gets a chance for Palace, with his attempt put behind by Garcia and the resulting Green corner headed over by Hudson. This is before more City pressure with McPhee released by Hughes where his shot is cleared to the left wing and a Pedersen shot is tipped over.

By now Hughes has swapped positions with Pedersen, meaning Pedersen is now playing up front with McPhee and Hughes on the left. The impact of this has Marney release Hughes down the wing before crossing to Garcia to head over.

Palaces next chance has Craig whip in a deep cross which is headed out for a corner. This is headed out by Turner before Green crosses back in for Myhill to punch clear.

With the score-board advertising an evening with Peter Taylor and John Salako on 18th November, which some City fans thought maybe optimistic, given rumours of the precarious state of Taylor’s job in South London, the inevitable happened. Morrison breaks though our midfield and plays the ball right. The cross his hit to the back post to be met by, I presume, the head of Scowcroft (I say presume, as the stand support was perfectly positioned to block the view of the scorer) to direct the ball past Myhill and into the back of the net.

Brown's immediate response was to replace Hughes with Featherstone.

The goal had the effect of lifting the Palace players, whilst City’s heads seemed to drop a bit as Palace enjoyed their best period of play in the game. The main chance coming from a Craig cross to Scowcroft but his header is easily cleared.

With time ticking away, Palace adopt the typical Taylor approach and drop back to protect the lead, with the 3rd time in three games, the inevitable happening.

Firstly a Featherstone cross across the box is met by Ricketts who plays in McPhee to shoot wide. Then with 89 minutes having passed, a Palace defender climbs over Turner, who’d been pushed up front. Turner perhaps goes down a little theatrically, but the ref points to the spot.

Looking at the players on the pitch, you wonder who would take the penalty, but with Speroni trying to put him off, Marney calmly slots the ball into the bottom corner.

Aside from a Palace free kick in injury time where Hudson heads over, City walk away with a point following yet another late equaliser over Palace.

Overall, City really are improving as a team. The midfield seem to be controlling the game well. My only criticisms of the performance is that we seem to lack a cutting edge up front and I still worry about Livermore’s tackling in comparison to say Ian Ashbee.

HULL CITY (4-4-2): Myhill; Ricketts, Turner, Brown, Delaney; Garcia, Livermore, Marney, Pedersen; Okocha, Windass.  Subs: Hughes (for Okocha, 13), McPhee (for Windass, 67), Featherstone (for Hughes, 83), Doyle, Duke.

Goals: Marney 90 (pen)

Booked: Livermore

Sent Off: None

CRYSTAL PALACE: Speroni, Butterfield, Hudson, Cort, Craig, Soares, Watson, Fletcher, Hughes, Scowcroft, Dickov.  Subs: Martin (for Hughes, 46), Green (for Watson, 62), Morrison (for Dickov, 62), Lawrence, Flinders.

Goals: Scowcroft 81

Booked: None

Sent Off: None

REFEREE:  R Beeby

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