Zaha, Murray seal win for Palace

Crystal Palace's Wilfried Zaha and Glenn Murray sealed a 2-1 win over Stoke City in an entertaining midtable Premier League clash at the Brittania Stadium on Saturday.

Ivory Coast-born England winger Zaha showed few signs of the hip injury which troubled him in last week's 3-1 win against QPR in which he also scored, as he netted the match winner minutes after a Murray penalty.

All three goals came in the first half with Senegalese striker Mame Biram Diouf putting Stoke ahead on 14 minutes with his ninth goal of the season.

The hosts had looked firmly in control early only to concede a penalty minutes before the break. Murray stepped up to convert and was followed closely by Zaha's winner in the last action of the first half.

Since manager Alan Pardew's arrival in January, the Eagles have been soaring and continued their push up the table to move 11 points clear of the relegation zone.

"Character got us the win today and this is one of the best teams I've managed for that. Incredible character," said Pardew, who believes his side are just one point away from safety.

"I'm overjoyed for the players because they worked really hard, we had to dig deep.

"To get to 36 points is us done, really. With eight games and the way we're playing you'd expect us to be there."

Palace's Murray and Yannick Bolasie both missed early shots at goal with Diouf also having an effort blocked after 11 minutes.

But the Senegalese forward made no mistake three minutes later. Charlie Adam's free-kick deflected off Palace's Damien Delaney into the path of the Stoke forward, who fired past Julian Speroni from close range.

Senegalese striker Pape Souare came close to opening Palace's account after 37 minutes only for his header to go wide.

But the visitors levelled through Murray's penalty three minutes before the break after an Asmir Begovic foul on Bolasie.

The visitors pulled ahead just before the break when Murray headed a cross to Zaha to fire into the net.

Both sides had chances early in the second half with Diouf flicking in a low cross from Charlie Adam but Speroni held firm.

Another Zaha low cross was half-cleared but went straight to Jason Puncheon, who spooned over the bar.

Stoke poured forward but Palace's Scott Dann and Delaney did well to close down defence to secure their fifth away win of the season.

Palace are now 11th with 36 points, two places below Stoke.

Ref sorry for City-West Brom error

Referee Neil Swarbrick issued an apology on Saturday after mistakenly sending off West Bromwich Albion defender Gareth McAuley during his side's 3-0 Premier League defeat at Manchester City.

West Brom's Craig Dawson fouled City striker Wilfried Bony just outside the box in the second minute of the game at the Etihad Stadium, but Swarbrick showed a straight red card to an incredulous McAuley.

"In the second minute of Manchester City v West Bromwich Albion, referee Neil Swarbrick made a decision to send off Gareth McAuley for a 'denial of an obvious goalscoring opportunity' offence," Professional Game Match Officials Ltd, the body responsible for Premier League referees, said in a statement.

"The referee has confirmed the offence was caused by a different player, which should be addressed now as a case of mistaken identity. The referee has apologised for his error."

It was the second such case in the space of three weeks, following Sunderland defender Wes Brown's dismissal at Manchester United after Radamel Falcao appeared to have been fouled by John O'Shea.

Brown's red card was later rescinded, but his suspension was not transferred to O'Shea, with referee Roger East explaining that he mistakenly thought that Brown had committed a foul.

A similar incident also occurred last season, with Kieran Gibbs wrongly sent off after Arsenal teammate Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain handled the ball on the line during a 6-0 loss at Chelsea.

Following Saturday's incident, West Brom manager Tony Pulis called for match officials to be able to make use of video technology.

"I would definitely call now for managers to have two calls each and every game, where there are 30 seconds and they can have a video link-up with people upstairs who can watch it on video," he said.

Wenger proud as Arsenal keep streak

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said he was proud of his players after they stayed hot on the heels of second-placed Manchester City with a 2-1 Premier League win at Newcastle United on Saturday.

After the heartache of a midweek Champions League exit to Monaco, despite a valiant 2-0 win on the French Riviera, they dug deep into their energy reserves to survive a late Newcastle onslaught at St James' Park.

Olivier Giroud's first-half double ultimately proved decisive as the Gunners racked up a sixth successive win in all competitions to remain a point behind City and four adrift of leaders Chelsea who have two games in hand on the chasing pack.

Wenger said his side were running on empty after their energy-sapping exploits on the French Riviera where they bowed out of Europe on away goals.

"We have played four games in two weeks and three away games at Manchester United, Monaco and here today and we've won all three," Wenger told a news conference.

"The last 40 minutes were difficult because our legs had gone a little bit and Newcastle played very well in the second half but we had an outstanding second half going forward. I'm proud of the performance we put in today."

Giroud has responded in magnificent style after being heavily criticised after the 3-1 home defeat by Monaco.

Since then he has scored four in three games and now has 11 since the beginning of the year.

"He scores the goals, he fights hard and keeps the ball up front. He is like every striker, he wants to score goals and the confidence comes from scoring goals, it's a vicious circle," added Wenger.

"He is a fighter and has improved technically."

With Arsenal on a roll, Wenger was asked whether they could still catch Chelsea with nine games remaining.

"Chelsea have a good security and at the moment I feel they have enough to be quite serene," he said.

"We have Manchester City in front of us but if you look behind us it is tight as well so the important thing is to win our games. Chelsea have too much security."