October 25 2011

Darren Ambrose

Crystal Palace secured a spot in the Carling Cup quarter-finals with a 2-0 win at home to Southampton.

Darren Ambrose and Jermaine Easter netted the goals to help guide Palace through to the last eight stage for the first time in eight years.

Saints, who currently top the Championship, went close to scoring inside the first minute of the tie when Jack Cork's header was hacked off the line by Stuart O'Keefe.

And the Eagles' back-up keeper Lewis Price did well to save from Ben Reeves and then thwart Jonathan Forte's dangerous shot.

Palace were restricted to long-range efforts and after the interval got closer to scoring with an Easter effort just wide of the goal. He also dragged a decent opportunity off target shortly afterwards.

But the breakthrough came in the 72nd minute thanks to the magic of Jon Williams when he took advantage of a sliced clearance from Southampton defender Aaron Martin and sent in a low cross for Ambrose to convert.

The lead was doubled nine minutes later after Dan Harding brought down Williams inside the box and Easter blasted home the spot kick to keep Palace's fine run going.

Palace: Price, Clyne, McCarthy, Ramage, Moxey, Williams (Gardner 82), Dikgacoi, Parr (Zaha 84), O'Keefe, Ambrose (Jedinak 75), Easter.

Not Used: Speroni, Iversen, Pedroza, Dorman.

Southampton: Bialkowski, Butterfield, Reeves (Do Prado 80), Martin, Harding, De Ridder, Ward-Prowse, Schneiderlin, Holmes (Lambert 77), Cork, Forte (Barnard 69).

Not Used: Dovey, Richardson, Moore, Dean.

Today's results and scorers

2011/12 match reports

2011/12 squad stats

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