Hendrie proved the sublime exception nut-megging Riihilahti before curling the equaliser

Hendrie proved the sublime exception, nut-megging Riihilahti before curling the equaliser.The former England midfielder’s build-up to the match was unusual even by the standards of one whose appearances in the red-top tabloids are not always confined to the sports pages. Dowie will have to revise his tactics to provide support for Johnson, for at home the onus is on them to break down opponents who sit deep.Villa toiled in the face of precisely that challenge, O’Leary admitting they failed to summon the requisite quality as Palace took heart from Gabor Kiraly’s safe handling and Michael Hughes’ leadership in midfield. I think we can do it again.”Palace’s next game, against Fulham at Selhurst Park a week tonight, comes into the must-win category if they are to make Alan Hansen and others eat their words. The midfielder added: “After something like that, you feel you can go out and beat anyone We’re used to being outsiders and proving people wrong. If we’re the best we can be as often as we can, we may be in with a chance.”Echoes, perhaps, of his pre-match exhortations, which Aki Riihilahti hailed as “a great speech”. Why is that when it’s two players of similar ability? It’s a mental thing We must keep believing and being positive. Yet rather than using them as a motivational tool, he hinted at a more subtle psychological stimulus “The mind is an incredible thing In tennis you can lose the first set 6-1 and win the match It happened in the US Open.

“AJ was out with me on the training ground in the week, working on finishing with his left [foot],” Dowie explained. “He has played every game like that and has had just one poor half all season.”Collectively, Palace had probably had one good half before this match. However, Dowie had devised a strategy to make it hard for Villa to penetrate and enable his team to counter-attack. Even with three players who had never started a game in the top division, they made a mockery of those pundits who prematurely branded them the worst team in Premiership history.Dowie deemed such judgements “disrespectful”. It has been achieved, moreover, in a bottom-of-the-table side with two points out of 21.Johnson’s pace has often been wasted on the right of midfield, so the left-footed flourish that caught Villa cold was gratifying, for himself and the Palace manager, Iain Dowie (as well as for Birmingham supporters). The tally is in keeping with his ratio over the 70 games since he arrived as a makeweight when Clinton Morrison relocated to the Midlands. He’s not afraid to take a knock, and he’s a threat all the time.

His goals could make the difference to them.”The one which threatened to break Palace’s duck until Lee Hendrie’s riposte means that Johnson has scored four in seven Premiership outings. “Johnson’s a tough, game lad, a small player with a big heart, like [Paul] Dickov. “Olof Mellberg is a good player, but he had a really hard game,” he said. Palace are still waiting, but as the Aston Villa manager readily conceded, it was not for want of trying by the striker known as “AJ”.
O’Leary made an exception to his rule about not discussing other people’s players after Palace’s lone front-runner had preoccupied his centre-backs with lung-bursting endeavour. Crystal Palace last won a Premiership away fixture in 1998 – so long ago that David O’Leary was No 2 to George Graham at Leeds United and rated unlikely management material, while Andrew Johnson was just 17 and a year away from his Birmingham City debut. It happened here and Vaughan and his side must put it behind them right away and just make sure it does not happen again.The reverse side of the coin is that all those latterly rather dormant supporters of the game in the Caribbean, at last have something to cheer about.