Lets be 'avin you Narridge

Kicking off after your rivals have already secured their weekend result usually piles on the pressure. Fortunately for us, after a lot of talking from the Man Utd camp this week, Palace held them to a 0-0 draw, giving us the opportunity to go 8 points clear again, with a game in hand against West Brom.

The 5:15 kick off is never that good, but we started well and the superb Joe Cole, who has played well in the last two games, picked himself up after being dispossessed, won the ball back, rode a challenge and planted the ball into the roof of the net from the edge of the area to put us ahead.

In the first half, Petr Cech also completed his 1000th minute without conceding a Premiership goal, and was on course for the English league record of 11 consecutive clean sheets.

It was very disappointing then when Leon McKenzie powered in a header from six yards with less than half an hour to go.

The result was safe soon after, when we stepped up a gear and Kezman and Ricky Carvalho made it 3-1.

8 points clear, a game in hand, and a huge game against Barca to come this week.