EAGLES ARE GROUNDED

Palace fail to spark in bore

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THE M23 derby had all the excitement of being stuck in a 90-minute tailback as Crystal Palace and Brighton played out a forgettable goalless stalemate at Selhurst Park.

There was little to separate the teams in terms of performance, with the visitors shading the possession statistics while Palace had more shots but fewer on target.

If anyone deserved more it was the supporters, home and away, who maintained a ferocious atmosphere throughout in south London despite a paucity of anything happening on the pitch to justify it.

Home fans drew enormous glee from a yellow card shown to Brighton's Georginio Rutter for diving inside the box in the second half after VAR over turned an initial penalty decision.

Palace were without defender Marc Guehi, with Oliver Glasner confirming before kickoff he had suffered a bruised bone in his foot towards the end of Thursday's Conference League win and would miss the upcoming England internationals.