Soccer

Hull City’s new-look forward line draws a blank as Jason Puncheon seals it for Crystal Palace

Shane Long of Hull City goes to ground after a challenge by Danny Gabbidon of Crystal Palace during the Premier League match at Selhurst Park. Photograph: Bryn Lennon/Getty Images
Shane Long of Hull City goes to ground after a challenge by Danny Gabbidon of Crystal Palace during the Premier League match at Selhurst Park. Photograph: Bryn Lennon/Getty Images
Tue Jan 28 2014 - 22:31

DOMINIC FIFIELD

CRYSTAL PALACE 1 HULL CITY 0

Money tends to tell even at the foot of this division though, for now, Crystal Palace appear to be bucking the established trend. Tony Pulis' team have not spent a penny in this transfer window and yet, in victory, hoisted themselves level with a Hull team who had fielded a new €16.4 million forward line assembled since the new year.

Shane Long and Nikica Jelavic should surely, in time, edge their new club to safety but, for now, they find themselves dragged back towards trouble and their goalkeeper, Allan McGregor, was sent off in added time for kicking Stuart O’Keefe.

Jelavic should have recorded his first goal for Hull early on after finding space between Danny Gabiddon and Adrian Mariappa in the six-yard box only to air-kick from Ahmed Elmohamady's delivery.

Outpaced
Long stretched Palace and unsettled both centre halves. Indeed, his industry might have earned a penalty as he outpaced Gabiddon and leant into the defender, who appeared inadvertently to sandwich the forward's right leg.

The contact was clear though the referee, some distance upfield, waved away the appeals. Within minutes Palace had pilfered the lead themselves.

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Yannick Bolasie tormented Liam Rosenior and eventually sprinting beyond the wing-back, who crumpled meekly to the turf. The winger's first cut-back struck his prone opponent, though there was time enough to regather and find Puncheon in the centre . His header would have flown wide had it not struck Marouane Chamakh, with the loanee from Southampton duly thumping home the rebound.
CRYSTAL PALACE: Speroni, Mariappa, Gabbidon (O'Keefe 81), Delaney, Moxey, Bolasie (McCarthy 64), Ward, Jedinak, Puncheon, Chamakh (Wilbraham 86), Jerome. Subs Not Used: Gayle, Williams, Price, Bannan. Booked: Delaney, Chamakh, Jerome, O'Keefe.
HULL CITY McGregor, Davies, Bruce (Quinn 76), McShane, Elmohamady, Livermore, Huddlestone, Meyler (Boyd 56), Rosenior, Jelavic (Fryatt 84), Long. Subs Not Used: Koren, Sagbo, Harper, Faye. Sent Off: McGregor
Referee: R East (Wiltshire).