Palace deserve to hold insipid Villa

An away draw felt almost as good as victory for Palace. They remain without a Premiership win, but at least ended a run of five successive defeats against a Villa side, undefeated at home this season that lost only four times last season.

An away draw felt almost as good as victory for Palace. They remain without a Premiership win, but at least ended a run of five successive defeats against a Villa side, undefeated at home this season that lost only four times last season.

Early days, of course, and Palace will probably still go down, but not without giving their supporters something to cheer about. They went home with a bit of pride restored last night. Villa were booed off.

"I'm disappointed, but that was all we deserved," honest Villa manager David O'Leary admitted. "Palace came in with a 4-5-1 formation and it was down to us to break them down, but we didn't have the quality to do that."

Most of football expected a Villa win and it looked as though their players thought they would be gifted all three points just for taking part. "Just because we're Villa and have a fantastic stadium doesn't mean you will win," O'Leary pointed out afterwards.

Palace manager Iain Dowie rightly took heart from this stirring performance and was slightly disappointed not to win having taken an early lead through Andy Johnson and squandered other chances either side of Lee Hendrie's equaliser.

Dowie said: "I don't like all the negative talk around us. I remain positive. We're living the dream up here and we will end the season better people and a better team. If we end up still in the Premiership then great. If we get knocked down we'll bounce back again. We're trying to hold on to this slippery Premiership ladder and it's hard to get a grip."

Palace came out determined to end their run of five defeats and Wayne Routledge had a shot cleared off the line by Olof Mellberg after two minutes.

Sleepy Villa were still not awake four minutes later when another ball over the top, from Aki Riihilahti, freed Johnson, who held off Mellberg's challenge and scored from just inside the penalty area.

Johnson, a former Birmingham player, risked celebrating in front of the Holte End and got away with it. Villa remained poor until a flash of brilliance from Hendrie levelled matters in the 36th minute. He turned on a Juan Pablo Angel pass and scored with a curling right-foot shot from 25-yards out.

It was a great goal and deserved a good celebration, but new Premiership referee Mark Clattenburg booked Hendrie for milking it. Villa manager O'Leary accurately commented from the touchline by doing an exaggerated impression of a robot. He said afterwards: "I asked him about it and why he didn't punish Johnson, but I didn't get an answer."

The home side improved but Palace had the better chances and Villa keeper Thomas Sorensen made a wonder save from a Ben Watson shot on his debut and Johnson went close from the ensuing corner.

Palace should have grabbed all three points when Tony Popovic headed inches over in the 88th minute and Sorensen made a finger-tip stop from Michael Hughes in stoppage time.