Palace gain comfort from Johnson and Johnson again

It is still so early in the season that Palace's second win back in the Premiership lifted them from the bottom up to 15th. Woeful West Brom slip to 16th, but have Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United in their next five games. Manager Gary Megson might not last even that long.

It is still so early in the season that Palace's second win back in the Premiership lifted them from the bottom up to 15th. Woeful West Brom slip to 16th, but have Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United in their next five games. Manager Gary Megson might not last even that long.

He revealed afterwards that he cancelled Thursday's training after 20 minutes because his players' attitude was so poor and admitted: "That was the worst performance in my four and a half years at the club.

"We were soft, second to the ball and it was totally unacceptable. To get it right we have to work. That's how we got here and that's how we will stay."

The same applies to Palace. Over a quarter of the games have been played - win their next matches at Birmingham and home to Arsenal and they can start talking about a European place. They fully deserved this victory and will win again, but a more likely scenario is that they will be playing West Brom next season when they are both relegated back down to the Championship.

The ever-honest Palace manager Iain Dowie said: "It will be a relief for everyone to look at the Premiership table. We have never thought of ourselves as rock bottom, but even I might have doubted the players at the start of the season. I will make mistakes and the players have shown they can cope now."

A match that promised so little on such a miserable day thankfully failed to match expectations and a cracking atmosphere confounded the neutrals and showed what it meant to the supporters.

The game was 12 minutes old by the time Palace had gone two up and West Brom had missed a sitter. So much for a non-event. Megson said he set his formation out to try and play for a clean sheet, but Fitz Hall smashed the master plan wide open with a fifth-minute headed goal following a cross from the irrepressible Wayne Routledge. Albion could have equalised moments later when Darren Moore got on the end of a Robert Earnshaw corner and had further chances.

Palace, going for their first win in 13 games against West Brom, sensed this could be their lucky number and continued to press forward. They were awarded an unlikely penalty by referee Matt Messias, who judged that Martin Albrechtsen had pushed Andy Johnson as he attempted to shoot from a Joonas Kolkka cross. Johnson sent Russell Hoult the wrong way from the penalty spot and Albrechtsen was withdrawn from defence in the 24th minute and replaced by Jonathan Greening, as Megson attempted to bolster his midfield.

Game over? Not when Earnshaw, unmarked, hit the bar two minutes into the second half, but three minutes later Johnson scored his seventh of the season and Palace's third on the day, finishing a strong run from the half-way line with a low shot in off a post from 25-yards out.

Palace continued to battle to the end, but Albion were never in it. "We were out West Brommed by Crystal Palace," Megson concluded.