Desperate Dann to rescue in Pardew’s game of two halves

AS Scott Dann’s last-gasp header hit the back of the net, Selhurst Park roared with relief.

Alan Pardew’s team were awful in the first half, brilliant in the second but defeat would have been a huge blow for a club still reeling from Wilfried Zaha’s request to move to Tottenham.

Palace chairman Steve Parish had labelled Tottenham’s bid ‘ridiculous’ and insisted there is no chance of allowing Zaha to leave.

However, Pardew took the decision to put Zaha on the bench, and started with Christian Benteke and Connor Wickham as a strike pairing.

‘But they looked disjointed following the tactical switch while Bournemouth, unchanged from their defeat at West Ham last week, started better.

‘We were absolutely brilliant after half-time,’ said Pardew, who sent Zaha on just after the hour. ‘It felt as though we had made 11 changes.

‘I didn’t make any changes, I sent the same players out and they were completely different.’

After 11 minutes Bournemouth won a freekick on the right, which was headed out by Benteke as far as Harry Arter, who lifted a sumptuous cushioned pass through to King and the Norwegian hit his shot past Steve Mandanda.

Going behind seemed to shake Palace back to life and when a cross from the left was sent towards Benteke, Charlie Daniels held his shirt and referee Mike Dean pointed to the spot.

Cabaye blasted the ball towards Artur Boruc’s righthand post but the keeper did brilliantly to get across to save.

Palace, inspired by Zaha’s introduction on 66 minutes, eventually found a way through a resolute defence. Dann met Jason Puncheon’s cross into the area and headed past Boruc.

For Eddie Howe, it was difficult to take but a result he thought was fair.

‘There’s been a lot of question marks about our defensive play at times but I thought the centre-backs, supported by everybody else in the team, the goalkeeper, really did put a good display in for the majority of the game.’ CRYSTAL PALACE (4-4-2): Mandanda 7; Ward 6 (Kelly 88min), Dann 6, Delaney 5.5, Souare 5; Townsend 6.5, McArthur 6 (Lee 66, 6.5), Cabaye 5.5, Puncheon 7; Benteke 6.5, Wickham 5.5 (Zaha 66, 7). Subs (not used): Speroni, Tomkins, Ledley, Boateng. Booked: Cabaye, Delaney, Benteke. BOURNEMOUTH (4-2-3-1): Boruc 7.5; Smith 7, Francis 6.5, Cook 7, Daniels 6.5; Surman 7, Arter 7.5; Ibe 7.5 (Gosling 59, 6.5), King 8, Fraser 7 (Ake 88); Wilson 7.5 (Grabban 70, 6). Subs (not used): Federici, Afobe, Gradel, Smith. Booked: Boruc. Referee: Mike Dean, 6. Attendance: 23,503.