Dennis the Menace

So Dennis Rommedahl, perhaps the most disappointing of our summer signings (and believe me there is plenty of competition) has transformed himself into a most unlikely hero with a sense of timing which would have made Rolex proud. With over 92 minutes played (and with the fourth official only having signalled two minutes of injury time), he moved those quick feet into a shooting position and hammered a pinpoint effort inside the near post. To be fair to him, he had looked a little more promising in the second half, but one weak left-footed pass moments earlier had me berating him with language I'm not proud of. Nonetheless as Paul Kitson found out a few seasons ago, scoring your first goal for the club late in the game at Palace is a surefire way to ensure a boost to your popularity. I think Rommedahl's main problem is that he is not an especially talented footballer in the strictest sense of the word, but happens to be blessed with extraordinary pace and quick feet which allows him with one feint of the shoulder, to open up the play. Hopefully the goal will give him the confidence to do what he does best, and perhaps more importantly, Curbs will give him the freedom to do it. There seems little point trying to turn him into a hard-working defensive midfielder in the style of Stuart or Kishishev because he is not cut out for it.

It had been a hard-fought competitive game and 0-0 would probably have been a fair result, and without wishing to sound biased we looked slightly the more accomplished of two average sides. However the slightly fortunate penalty decision was met with an equally fortunate save (it's hard to argue with Sky's replay of Kiely several feet from his line), and the game seemed to be meandering towards a goalless finish. Thomas had looked lively again and had a great effort turned away just before half-time, whilst Holland and Murphy probed and fought without finding the key to opening up the Palace defence. El Karkouri also looked assured again and he will learn from the penalty he conceded.

It wasn't the first fortuitous win of the season (Portsmouth also springs to mind) but it was certainly the most vital one so far, as the teams below us began to creep up and other out-of-form sides like Spurs began to pick up points. With 16 games played, we are over halfway to our first target of 40 points and in light of a number of disastrous performances, we should feel reasonably satisfied given the obvious scope for improvement from hereon.