Ian Holloway raged at referee Dean Whitestone after Crystal Palace missed out on the chance to go second in the Championship on Saturday.

The Eagles were held 2-2 at home by Leeds United as they missed numerous chances before Glenn Murray scored his second of the match late on to secure a point.

But it was the performance of Mr Whitestone that had Holloway storming on to the pitch at full-time as he confronted the official and then Leeds' Luke Varney - who he felt should have been sent off.

"I saw Luke Varney foul Jonny Williams from behind, a blatant yellow card and the ref didn't give him one," he said.

"Two minutes later, Varney dives and he gives him one for that, and he should have been off.

"Then, two minutes later, Wilf's gone clean through and is scythed down completely, and the defender gets a yellow. If that's not a goalscoring opportunity I don't know what the rules are any more.

"So to me we should have been 1-0 up playing against nine men. That's my opinion. We played against a good team but I'm delighted with a point come the end of the day.

"I can't fault our lads apart from the finishing.

"We should have killed the game off when we had the chance, but I'm also relying on the referee seeing things correctly and being brave enough to give out yellow cards. He was so lenient it was quite frightening."

Murray put Palace ahead but Wilfried Zaha missed a good chance when put through on goal and Stephen Dobbie missed the target on three occasions as Steve Morison put Leeds 2-1 ahead.
Murray, the top scorer in English football, drew Palace level by converting Damian Delaney's long ball but it was two points dropped in Palace's automatic push.

"I thought it was an exhilarating performance," added Holloway.

"I'm bemused how we were behind in the game and I'm delighted how we came back. I thought we missed too many chances though.

"On another day, we might have hit the target a bit more and then we would have won the game comfortably.

"We've more than created enough against as good a Leeds team as I've seen in quite a while, so well done to Neil.

"We've got nine games left now, we're one point off second place at the moment. It's all about your form at the moment, and your belief and your energy."

Palace closed the gap on second-placed Watford to one point as the Hornets lost at home to Blackpool, but the Eagles could slip to fourth again tonight if Hull draw or win at Burnley. Leaders Cardiff weren't in action at the weekend but host fifth-placed Leicester tomorrow night.