Crystal Palace 0-4 Birmingham City

Written By: The Bluenose Bible

Birmingham City became only the second side to come away from Selhurst Park with three points this season as the side’s younger players ran the show to record surprising 4-0 victory.

In the early stages, Yannik Bolasie showed his international debut in Congo hadn’t affected his fitness levels by showing attacking flair and blistering pace, getting the better of Mitch Hancox on several occasions.

Nathan Redmond opened scoring after 24 minutes with a superb run across the Crystal Palace defence and fine left foot strike from the edge of the area for the winger’s second goal of the campaign.

Within ten minutes of the opener Blues doubled their unexpected lead thanks to an own goal by Damien Delaney from Shane Ferguson’s near post corner, leaving many Palace fans speechless through the travelling side’s professional but fearless display.

Even with two fresh faces at half time the hosts still couldn’t beat Jack Butland and get back into game as Kevin Phillips and Glenn Murray wasted their best chances.

Just after the hour mark, the result was almost sealed by Ravel Morrison following a great overlap and low cross by Mitch Hancox on the left hand side.

Shane Ferguson saved the best goal for last with a fantastic free kick from 25 yards out to score his first professional goal and become Blues’ third youngster to score on the night.

In the final minutes Andre Moritz and Scott Dobbie went close to making the score more respectable for the hosts but some will now question how good Crystal Palace will be next season without Wilfred Zaha.

Birmingham manager Lee Clark: “When you come to a place like this you expect it to be tough and a close match.

“It was but not in my wildest dreams did I expect the margin of victory to be that big and, in all honesty, it was fully deserved as well. It wasn’t a fluke.

“We had 11 fantastic performances today. You can’t come to a place like this and carry any passengers.

“We are just looking at the clubs directly above us to try and peg them back.

“We are also not being arrogant or ignorant and thinking we are out of what is going on behind us as well.”

Crystal Palace manager Ian Holloway: “No one was expecting that, I certainly wasn’t.

“Unfortunately I have got to deal with it right now. I think we started the game brightly, got behind them a couple of times.

“We didn’t pick out the right ball, didn’t get people on the end of it and then their goal seemed to affect everybody out there, which is completely unusual.

“Then they got a second one from a set piece and I was expecting a response like we did away at Watford.

“I can’t remember my team missing as many balls flying across the box or making as many wrong decisions as they did out there and they’ve gone and scored four. That is the last thing we need but we’ve got to get on with it.

“We have to bounce back and deal with things better. It is simple as that.”

Man of the match: Nathan Redmond