A fine solo goal from Yusuf Akhamrich and a late strike from Oliver Irow didn’t yield any points as Zach Marsh’s hat-trick gave Crystal Palace victory over our Under-21s in Friday evening’s Premier League 2 clash at Stevenage.
Four days on from our all-action season-opening win at Sunderland, we rotated in areas of the pitch but endured a tough night against a fresh, physical Eagles side playing their first game of the campaign. Centre-forward Marsh scored twice prior to the break – his first somewhat controversial with a big hint of offside in the build-up – before completing his treble to make it 3-1 after a moment of individual brilliance from Akhamrich had threatened to spark a second-half upturn for us.
In truth, Palace had the better chances overall and the game seemed to be fizzling out – until Irow’s 89th-minute goal gave us hope. With seven minutes of added time, we pushed for an equaliser but ultimately Palace had done enough to claim victory – albeit a narrower one than had seemed to be on the cards for a while in the second half.
Rio Kyerematen and Callum Olusesi tried a couple of early shots from distance but with less than three minutes gone, we were on the back foot as Adler Nascimento got away down the left despite big appeals for offside and squared for Marsh to finish routinely from the centre of the box.
Rio Cardines and Nascimento went close to a second for Palace while Irow was denied by a last-ditch tackle in the box by visiting defender Luke Browne in a rare opening for us. Marsh made it two soon afterwards, though, following in after Luca Gunter had parried Asher Agbinone’s effort from out on the right with 11 minutes to go until half-time.
Akhamrich emerged as our biggest attacking threat in the opening stages of the second period and conjured up a goal out of nothing five minutes after the restart to reduce the arrears, collecting the ball on the right flank before cutting inside and firing low inside the near post on his left foot from 20 yards out – a great strike.
Back came Palace, though, with Dylan Reid and Agbinone seeing shots blocked back-to-back by defender Tyrell Ashcroft before Agbinone struck the crossbar from a tight angle on the right, with James Rowswell getting in the way of Nascimento’s follow-up drive. Joel Drakes-Thomas then saw a stooping header from a corner brilliantly saved by Gunter, but after Akhamrich was thwarted in a couple of attempts to haul us level, Marsh bagged a crucial third for the Eagles on 73 minutes after latching onto Agbinone’s pass, seemingly putting the game to bed.
In the 89th minute, however, we found a lifeline as Reiss Russell-Denny won the ball out on the right and played it in to the feet of Luca Williams-Barnett, who turned it forward for Irow to slide home his third goal in two games. Our tails were up as we entered a significant period of added time, but we couldn’t make any further inroads and Palace ran out 3-2 winners.