Palace’s development side finished their regular season on Wednesday with a 1-0 win against Colchester United at Selhurst Park, helping the young side prepare for their play-off game against Huddersfield Town with this being their eighth win in 10 games.
Defender Christian Scales scored the only goal of the afternoon, in a game that the Eagles dominated but at the same time showed that their is still much work ahead of their play-off game, as passing and finishing in the final third was short of what has been expected of them throughout this campaign.
Gary Issott’s side had the better of the very limited clear-cut chances in the first half with Keshi Anderson who joined the club in the January transfer window being one of the most liveliest of players in the first half. with his first real attempt on goal being a free-kick that he won just outside of the area, it didn’t worry Colchester goalkeeper James Bransgrove though as it went straight over the bar and into the Whitehorse.
His attacking mentality continued after that as after playing a one-two with Reise Allassani, who has recently been offered a new deal by the club, he bursted towards goal before letting loose a shot that ended up cannoning off a defender who came across the flight of the ball, blocking his attempt.
The best chance of the first half though fell to Michael Phillips who was denied his first goal at under-21 level by Bransgrove as Phillips forced the keeper low when he curled the ball towards the bottom corner, leaving the goalkeeper at full stretch and pushing it behind for a corner.
Crystal Palace’s first half domination continued in the early exchanges of the second half with Jake Gray seeing an effort down low being parried out for a corner by Bransgrove, who was shortly called into action again from the resulting corner as he was forced to punch out a Connor Dymond header, causing chaos in the box, in which the ball was eventually cleared after just missing the oncoming Anderson.
Aaron Bissaka came on to add flair to the game, replacing Michael Phillips and it was a change that nearly paid off instantly as with one of his first attacks down the left flank, Bissaka whipped a ball into the box with some power but with not many options in the box, barring Colchester defenders, the cross went to a waste as it failed to find any of his teammates.
The deadlock was finally broken after a barrage of attempts from the Palace attackers when Anderson, who had created a lot of chances for himself throughout the game, broke away from a number of Colchester players on the halfway line and ran towards goal before slipping it to defender Christian Scales who slotted the ball past Bransgrove and into the bottom far corner, grabbing his first goal of the campaign.
Colchester were awoken by the goal and held possession for a period of time, having their fair share of attempts on goal with their closest chance being from a counter-attack where Palace goalkeeper Chris Kettings was forced to make a last ditch block with his feet to deny the attacker, ricocheting back into the area where the ball was cleared by Scales.
Looking for a second goal to put the game to bed, 15-year-old Kian Flanagan who had just came on to make his development debut nearly got his name on the scoresheet straight away but was denied by the legs of Bransgrove as Flanagan attempted to put a shot low past the keeper after finding his way through the Colchester defence.
The youngster was looking for a goal on his debut as a number of chances fell to him in the final ten minutes and with it looking likelier and likelier with each attack that he would find the back of the net, his best chance drifted wide of the goal as after being handed he ball on the left wing, he sent the ball flying to the far post where Scales managed to get his goal earlier on in the game but unfortunately for Flanagan it wasn’t to be.
Garry Issott’s side go into the play-offs with a large amount of momentum behind them and after a successful couple of weeks with the wins tallying up, a good result against Huddersfield could very much be on the cards at Selhurst Park.
