Liverpool nightmare as Palace ride luck

The victory may have been less of an upset than their remarkable semi final triumph over the same opponents 13 years ago, as Crystal Palace returned to haunt Liverpool in the FA Cup last night.

Gérard Houllier's men should have won this fourth-round replay at Anfield at a canter but paid the price for an extraordinary night of missed opportunities, with Michael Owen and Emile Heskey the main culprits.

It was a sweet triumph for Palace, who lost 5-0 here in a Worthington Cup semi-final two years ago, and for their manager, Trevor Francis, who suffered acute disappointment in the same season when Liverpool went on to beat his Birmingham City team in the final.

Palace supporters will now relish a fifth-round tie at home to Leeds United, whose manager, Terry Venables, is not the most popular figure at Selhurst Park after his disastrous second managerial reign at the club.

Yet the result would have been very different had Liverpool taken just a fraction of the chances they created in the first half. The First Division club could hardly believe their luck when they went in level at half-time, having been torn apart as Liverpool launched wave after wave of attacks.

With Bruno Cheyrou and El Hadji Diouf finding space on the flanks and the square Palace defence cut to ribbons by a series of punishing through-balls, it seemed that it would be only a matter of time before Liverpool scored.

Confidence at Anfield is low, however, and Owen in particular was guilty of a succession of misses. The England striker blazed over the bar from six yards, shot wide of a post after breaking clear and regularly miscued his shots.

The turning point of the match, however, was an appalling miss by Heskey in the second minute of the second half, capitalising on confusion between Kit Symons and Hayden Mullins as a Palace attack broke down, Heskey raced clear. Having sprinted the length of the pitch, however, he hesitated as Cedric Berthelin, Palace's inexperienced French goalkeeper, came out and easily smothered the shot.

Palace had been making some inroads early in the second half and in the 55th minute they stunned Liverpool by taking the lead. Danny Butterfield crossed from the right and although Dele Adebola made poor contact with his header the ball broke clear to Julian Gray, who drove home a fierce left-foot shot at the far post.

Liverpool's hopes rose briefly after 69 minutes when Palace were reduced to 10 men after Dougie Freedman elbowed Sami Hyypia, but the game was up for Houllier's men nine minutes later. Gray made room for himself on the left of the penalty area and his cross was turned into his own net by Stéphane Henchoz. Liverpool's play became increasingly desperate and even the introduction of Milan Baros failed to improve their fortunes.

Francis said: "Liverpool's inability to finish kept us in it because all over the field we were second best. I thought Liverpool were allowed more or less to do what they wanted and they created chance after chance.

"But when they kept missing I wondered if it might be our night and, after we brought on Dougie Freedman, we pushed them further up the field and started to get into the game. The pace of Dele Adebola troubled them and we were much better in the second half.''

Houllier, doing his best to hide his disappointment, said he had been pleased with his team's first-half performance, if not their finishing.

"I think we should have finished the game off before half time,'' the Liverpool manager said. "'We had so many chances. Maybe the turning point of the game was when Emile was one-on-one with the goalkeeper. It looked as though that miss deflated the rest of the team.''

Although Liverpool have a Worthington Cup final against Manchester United to look forward to and are still in the Uefa Cup, there is no escaping the fact that this has been a miserable winter for the men from Anfield. Out of the Champions' League and FA Cup and performing fitfully in the Premiership, this is not the sort of season that Liverpool fans had been anticipating when they led the League so impressively in the autumn.

Liverpool (4-4-2): Dudek; Carragher, Henchoz, Hyypia, Riise; Diouf, Hamann, Murphy (Baros, 66), Cheyrou; Owen, Heskey. Substitutes not used: Arphexad (gk) Traoré, Diao, Biscan.

Crystal Palace (5-4-1): Berthelin; Butterfield, Powell, Symons, Popovic, Granville (Freedman, 35); Johnson (Thomson, 87), Mullins, Derry, Gray; Adebola (Akinbiyi, 89). Substitutes not used: Cronin (gk), Black.

Referee: P Dowd (Stoke-on-Trent).