Match Recap: Crystal Palace u23s 2-0 Leeds United u23s

Leeds United’s under-23s has their winning run limited to nine games as Crystal Palace won 2-0 against a ten men.

Mark Jackson named a few changes to the side as Gaetano Berardi continues his comeback from injury, starting in place of Charlie Cresswell. Jack Jenkins returned to the starting lineup in midfield while Leif Davis also returned to the team with Joe Gelhardt upfront. Both Cresswell and Kenneh dropped to the bench with Bobby Kamwa while Ian Poveda also returned from injury.

After what was a tough 20 minutes where there were very few chances, Crysencio Summerville was sent off in a perplexing moment from the referee after the Dutchman held his man by the shoulder from behind before going down.

Palace were on the attack down the right but there were plenty of white jerseys back, a silly position for Summerville to put himself in but certainly not worthy of a second yellow card, the first seemingly being for not positioning himself back far enough from a Palace free-kick. Very harsh to say the least.

Palace dominated much of the first-half from there but were unable to create any clear-cut chances. Caprile did have some work to do between the sticks, but nothing more than routine.

The home side did eventually score early in the second-half as a long ball over the top beat the defence before their initial shot at goal git the post before Rak-Sakyi finished the rebound to put Palace 1-0 up.

Despite being down to 10 men, The Whites really tried to go after Palace and ended up dominating the second-half but found it tough to create killer chances. Leif Davis came close as his run down the left channel drew the goalkeeper away from goal as Davis latched onto a long ball. He lifted it over the keeper toward the open net but the ball was cleared off the line with five minutes to go.

Following a penalty shout on Nohan Kenneh, Palace sealed the three points as Spence brought a high pass down excellently into the left channel before slipping the ball into the near corner.

Had it not been for a silly and needless sending off, this game might’ve been different for the Leeds youngsters. Both the referee and Summerville partook in silly moments where neither made the right decisions given the circumstances. Leeds remain top of The Premier League 2 Division 2 table, but the chasing pack have the chance to shorten the gap to seven points.