Ipswich Town 3 Crystal Palace 1

A GLIMPSE of Palace colours is all it takes to transform Ipswich into goalscoring dervishes. This was a convincing scoreline, their most impressive since Palace were last at Portman Road for a Coca-Cola Cup tie two months ago and conceded four.

It makes it all the sweeter for local satisfaction that Dave Bassett was again on the end of a heavy Suffolk punch. Following the League game between the sides at Selhurst Park the Palace manager had rebuked Ipswich for their negativity.

Palace could have legitimate qualms about the way they fell behind after a debatable penalty a minute from the interval when David Tuttle was ruled to have fended off Paul Mason's touch with his left hand. Adam Tanner's conversion had Bassett raging: "It was a pathetic decision, I wish I could think of a better word for it. We did not deserve to go behind and at the end I am thinking 'how have we lost this one by three?'."

The visitors twice came close in the second half, through Carl Veart and Neil Shipperley, but Mason's marvellous volley from well outside the area deserved to be a match-winner on its own.

That put Ipswich 2-0 ahead and Bassett sent on David Hopkins and Dougie Freedman to give his side a vital edge in front of goal. A Dean Gordon penalty, when Shipperley was pulled down, lifted their spirits but with 11 minutes remaining Richard Naylor made it three with his first League goal.

Daily Telegraph