PALACE, deeply rooted at the bottom of the Premiership, did little to disperse the gloom with an awful first-half performance at Villa Park on Saturday.

Attilio Lombardo was in charge of the team for the first time as player-manager but the result leaves Palace with a club record of eight successive defeats in the league.

With an away trip to Newcastle tonight there appears to be little hope of the sequence being arrested.

Villa went ahead in the first minute when a completely unmarked Ian Taylor headed home a Fernando Nelson cross from eight yards.

On 15 minutes Valerien Ismael upended Julian Joachim in the Palace box and Savo Milosevic sent Kevin Miller the wrong way from the resultant penalty.

Villa continued to dominate and it was no surprise when they increased their lead on 36 minutes. Steve Staunton's cross was superbly controlled by Milosevic who volleyed home past the despairing Miller. That goal was the 50th Palace have conceded in 29 games.

A brighter second half saw the Eagles pull a goal back and it was a spectacular one at that, recent-signing Matt Jansen shrugging off several challenges before unleashing a terrific 20-yard drive past Mark Bosnich.

Despite Lombardo's introduction on the hour, Villa could have scored more. However, Bruce Dyer had two chances to reduce the arrears late in the game but hooked one shot wide before being foiled by a fine Bosnich save.

Everton, Barnsley, Bolton and Tottenham all grabbed three points at the weekend, adding insult to injury for the Eagles

Palace are now four points adrift of nearest strugglers Bolton Wanderers. If ever Palace needed to break their home duck it is at Sel-hurst on Satur-day week.

They take on fellow London-ers Tottenham, who are not out of the woods themselves, and one feels Palace must win if they are to pull off a great escape.

q Palace's home game against West Ham United, which was due to be played on March 7, has been rescheduled for Tuesday May 5, kick off 7.45pm. Tickets are now available for the home game on April 25 agai-nst Manchester United to members and season-ticket holders.

Brian Barnett

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.