Crystal Palace 3 - Coventry City 0

Man of the moment Johnson continued his impressive run of scoring with two more against a tidy Coventry side led superbly by Gary McAllister.

For Johnson it is now ten goals in five games.

Palace made a slow start though and Lee Mills should have scored from on-loan Craig Hignett's intelligent diagonal ball after just 43 seconds. Richie Partridge created another good opportunity just a couple of minutes later only for Hignett to fire over.

Trevor Francis later commented that Palace "were rubbish in the first ten minutes". But having survived those two and some other half chances Palace took the lead on 20 minutes.

Morten Hyldgaard's poor clearance went straight to Dougie Freedman whose pass found Dele Adebola on the left. His cross was headed powerfully home by Johnson.

Freedman should have added to Palace's lead three minutes later from Adebola's flick on, but he shot wide.

Mills spurned another fine opportunity after 27 minutes. He found himself unmarked at the far post but volleyed tamely wide.

Darren Powell had a header well saved from a corner routine just before the break. The second half began similarly to the first with Coventry again enjoying the territorial advantage.

Adebola continued to create Coventry's defensive problems. Three times he set up Johnson in the first 20 minutes of the second half. First Hyldgaard saved smartly at Johnson's feet while Johnson failed to get the other two on target.

Johnson did increase Palace's lead on 75 minutes, he broke powerfully down the left and cut in to fire a shot from 20 yards which went in off the near post.

He had a header saved on 79 minutes with the crowd anticipating another hat-trick.

Julian Gray finished the scoring with a minute left after Steve Thomson's shot was parried.