NEW BOSS LIFTS FANS’ MOOD, BUT BAGGIES CAN’T FIND NET

with his right. Albion survived a scare just before half-time when Ben Foster saved from Christian Benteke – but dominated the second half.

Roy Hodgson’s Crystal Palace could easily have done even better.

They were unlucky not to get a penalty when Foster tried to dribble round Wilfried Zaha and, as he scrambled to retrieve the ball, the two ended in a heap on the ground.

“We thought Ben caught Wilf’s leg,” said Hodgson.

“But, in any case, it should have been an indirect free-kick because he handled the ball after taking a back pass.”

Palace had had plenty of problems before the game. Scott Dann went down with a virus overnight and then goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey suffered a back spasm in the warm-up.

But they closed ranks around stand-in keeper Julian Speroni and it was early in the second half before he had to make a save, when he dived bravely at the feet of Jay Rodriguez.

And it was a measure of Palace’s commitment that Albion never really forced Speroni to make another save.

Hodgson had also earlier praised his Palace players for shrugging off the train journey from hell to climb off the foot of the table.

And now the former England boss thinks it could be full steam ahead on the journey to Premier League safety. “Anything that could go wrong for us did go wrong in the build-up,” revealed Hodgson. “We had a good training session and got on the train at Euston at 3.23pm – and at 3.30pm it stopped dead because of complications with the overhead wires. “We spent three-and-a-half hours in the dark and cold, with no toilet facilities or anything, and eventually they got a train alongside and everyone had to clamber across the track to get in that one. “We got to Birmingham New Street at about 9.30pm – and the quiet hotel we had booked turned out to be the venue for a wedding that went on until 2am. “The players could easily have used all that as an excuse, but, instead, they took a real level of pride and application into what they did.”