Crystal Palace 2, Oxford Utd 0 A SHOCKING start at Selhurst Park on Saturday cost Oxford United any chance of recording their first league win of the season.
Crystal Palace, quickly adjusting to life in the Nationwide after relegation from the Premiership in May, blitzed them with two goals in the first 12 minutes.
Sasa Crucic's simple pass through the middle split open Oxford's defence on five minutes and Bruce Dyer applied a clinical finish, side-footing his shot past the diving Phil Whitehead's left arm.
After the cup exit against Luton, which sapped morale, this was just what they didn't want.
And, seven minutes later, it got worse as quick-thinking by Italian international Attilio Lombardo put Palace in complete control.
Referee Andrew D'Urso had awarded a free-kick on the edge of the area after three United players converged on Curcic to try to stop his run.
Whitehead stood by his right-hand post to line up his wall and while he was doing so, Lombardo curled the kick into the empty net. Oxford's players, led by Martin Gray, raced after the ref to protest that he hadn't blown to allow the free-kick to be taken, but he merely booked Gray and waved the rest away.
After that terrible start, Malcolm Shotton's men regrouped, changed to a flat back four from the five with which they had begun, and battled back.
Indeed, their performance in the remaining 75 minutes will give their supporters grounds for hope for the months ahead and should outweigh the despair many of them must have felt in the opening quarter of an hour.
What the team lacked was a cutting edge up front.
Yet that wasn't for the lack of trying from Matt Murphy, who worked himself into the ground. However, his striking partner Simon Weatherstone was ineffective before coming off with an injury early in the second half.
Wingbacks Christophe Remy and Paul Powell, both starting their first games of the season, showed good ability on the ball and were refreshingly prepared to get forward.
At the start of the match, however, United, both as a team and individually, looked very limited compared to Palace.
Curcic was majestic on the left side of midfield, combining great skills with vision and subtlety. From a short free-kick on the left, Palace worked the ball for Curcic to blast in a shot that Whitehead got right behind.
A short back pass by Les Robinson, who made several uncharacteristic errors, left his keeper in trouble, but when Matt Jansen seized on the chance, he overran the ball out of play.
United's forays forward were few and far between in the early stages.
Murphy managed a shot on the turn after a quickly-taken free-kick by Dean Windass, but for the most part, the visitors played long, hopeful balls forward and only in the second half did they build up moves with any belief.
A fine break by Remy, who got to the bye-line and pulled the ball back perfectly, failed to bring any reward as Danny Hill's drive was blocked, and Windass scooped a shot from Murphy's pass straight at keeper Fraser Digby.
Nevertheless, it was a much better start to the second half by United - at both ends.
On one occasion when Curcic broke into the area, Powell showed amazing pace to dispossess him.
Windass almost copied Lombardo's quick-thinking at a free-kick by trying the same thing. But this time, while Digby was out of position lining up his wall, Windass curled it just wide.
In the closing minutes, Whitehead made saves from Dyer and Lombardo.
Palace were able to coast home on the back of their two-goal lead and took off both Curcic and Jansen without it obviously weakening the side.
Instead, on came Micheal Padavano, a quality finisher from Italy's Serie A - and that's a measure of what United are up against this season.
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