Another Chelsea Win Over the Palace

By The Kid
December 6 2005

The Reserves comprehensively beat Crystal Palace Reserves at The Rec last night running out 4-0 winners. The win moves Chelsea up into fifth place in the League table.

After a nervous and shaky start the Blues took the lead on seventeen minutes when skipper Danny Hollands crashed in a low volley from the corner of the area to score his third goal in three games. Once Chelsea took the lead, Palace would never recover. It was a surprise however that it took so long to Chelsea to score the second. Chelsea played brisk and fast attacking football but for the agility of Palace's goalkeeper Chelsea would have been out of sight by half-time.

Chelsea played the second half as they did the first and on fifty-five minutes seventeen year old Michael Mancienne stooped low from a Joe TIllen corner to head in his first Chelsea goal. Five minutes later Joe Tillen hit a cross shot that skipped past Rikki Banks to make the score 3-0.

Chelsea's fourth came when Mancienne hit a hard volley which Bank's did well to block, the ball found its way to Pettigrew who fired it back and Banks managed to tip it up in the air, where young Scott Sinclair had the easy job of nodding into an empty goal. Sinclair who came on as a substitute five minutes earlier scored his first goal for the Reserves.

Chelsea:

Yves Ma Kalambay; Dean Smith, Adrian Pettigrew, Michael Mancienne, Jonas Elmer; Joe Keenan (Jimmy Smith 76), Anthony Grant, Danny Hollands (capt); Filipe Morais, James Simmonds (Scott Sinclair 62), Joe Tillen.

Palace:

Rikki Banks, Phil Starkey, Arron Fray, Tom Welch (Anthony Straker 86), Mark Hudson (Moses Swaibu 70), Glenn Wilson, Tyrone Berry, Ryan Hall, Lewis Grabban, John Macken (Lewis Spence 70), Tommy Black.