Coventry City 1 - 0 Crystal Palace

A 4th minute penalty from Lee Hughes was enough to see the three points go to Coventry at Highfield Road this afternoon. Hughes was wrestled to the floor by Darren Powell, and calmly sent Palace 'keeper Matt Clarke the wrong way from the resultant penalty. Danny Granville should have drawn Palace level, but he missed the target with his header on 22 minutes. Just before half time Tony Popovic had the ball in the Coventry net only for referee Prosser to rule that the big defender had used a hand to control the ball, and disallowed the "goal". Palace were much brighter in the second half and began to pressurise the Coventry defence. Coventry were reduced to 10 men when Safri was sent of after 65 minutes for his second bookable offence. Having earlier been cautioned for a foul on Shaun Derry, he incurred the wrath of Mr. Prosser for a foul on Dougie Freedman and was given his marching orders. Coventry then brought on veteran centre back Steve Walsh and changed to a back three which Palace found hard to breakdown. Manager Trevor Francis thought that Palace deserved to come away with something from the game, but admitted that his side ran out of ideas when Walsh came on.