Manager George Burley hailed his side last night as Crystal Palace recorded their first away points of the season at Cardiff City.

The Eagles bounced back from Saturday's 5-0 drubbing at Derby County with an accomplished defensive performance and could have won had Bluebirds keeper Tom Heaton not made a number of saves.

“Compared to Saturday it was a million times better so I am very pleased”, said Burley.

“It was a good team performance from our two young wide players right through to Pablo Counago making his first start for us.

"The back four and midfield all worked hard too.

“We are disappointed because we had the better chances on a night when we could have nicked the three points.

“I believe if you perform well you will get results and tonight was a good performance without getting the three points but tonight’s performance will win us games.”

Claude Davis and Neil Danns were both substituted in the opening 20 minutes as Palace's injury crisis deepened ahead of Saturday's match with league leaders QPR.

“We are running out of players and that is the problem," said Burley.

"We had about six injured before tonight and that is another two so that is about eight.

"We are really stretched unfortunately.

“Neil Danns has done his medial ligaments so that could be a number of weeks.

"With Claude Davis it was his back so we do not know how long that will be.

"They got a chance out of nothing because Claude could not run.

“But to come to Cardiff and limit them to maybe one or two chances for the whole game and to create more for ourselves, I was very pleased."