Again the little winger decided to use the outside of his right foot but this time

Again the little winger decided to use the outside of his right foot, but this time he made no mistake and buried the ball in the bottom corner of the net.Wolves started the second half looking far more compact. The visitors’ tactic was clearly to sit back, soak up pressure, and try to hit Birmingham on the break. The ploy worked well, although John managed to squander two excellent chances for the home side just after the hour. Twice, the frontman had only the keeper to beat from eight yards, and twice he saw his tame efforts end up in Oakes’ hands. That was as good as it got in a disappointing half.”I’m pleased we came back,” Bruce said afterwards.

“We showed a lot of character and I’m hopeful we can learn from this.” As for the First Division title, that will be decided when Manchester City visit Wolves on 1 April. Only a fool would try to predict the outcome of that.Birmingham City 2 John 36, Devlin 45Wolves 2 Butler 20, Lescott 29Half-time: 2-2 Attendance: 22,104. Trevor Francis and Gianluca Vialli were once team-mates at Sampdoria in the mid-1980s, but there was little sign of the old pals’ act here at Selhurst Park. Back in Serie A all those years ago, Francis was the senior partner as Vialli learned his playing trade. The Italian is still the junior in management terms, but here inspired Watford to a comfortable victory as Palace endured their fifth consecutive home match without a win and missed a chance to close on the play-off zone. Still, at least one person believes the Eagles can make it into the top six, as the stadium announcer declared on the public-address system after the match that he felt they could still do it, with seven games left.

The pity was that no one was left in the ground to hear him.Francis himself did not go as far as writing off Palace’s hopes, but with Burnley winning to increase the gap between them and the play-off zone to six points, he is not holding his breath “It’s a big blow for us, this defeat,” Francis admitted. “We were hoping for big points out of our two home games this week and we’ve only got one. We’ve got a mountain to climb.”Pivotal to the result was the form of Alec Chamberlain, as the Watford goalkeeper made crucial saves in the first half, when the game was still goalless, then kept the Eagles at bay late on. As Francis acknowledged: “Chamberlain made saves he was not entitled to make.”Yet halfway through the first half it seemed only a matter of time before Palace would break their home-goal duck, which now stretches back four games.

With 19 minutes gone, they wasted two chances within seconds of each other, which epitomised their recent woes in front of goal. When the ball fell to Clinton Morrison six yards out, he brought a fine save from Chamberlain and the rebound, struck by Hayden Mullins, was again pushed out.That was all Watford needed to gain some confidence, something they lacked having failed to win away from home since December. Deep in first-half injury time they built an attack down the left and, when Stephen Glass crossed, Allan Nielsen was there at the far post to tap in.Francis singled out that goal as a severe body-blow, and even Vialli conceded that his Hornets had been lucky to take the lead, but things got even worse for the home manager two minutes after the interval. Watford’s second came in much the same way as the first, with a delivery from the left-hand flank.