Crystal Palace boss Neil Warnock was in philosophical mood after a frustrating night at Selhurst Park ended in a 1-0 defeat to Aston Villa.

Despite watching his Eagles side, which included a start for Wilfried Zaha, pepper the Villa goal, Warnock had to settle for nothing.

He was also resigned to not getting the rub of the green when referee Mike Oliver waved away penalty appears in the second half when Fraizer Campbell was felled in the penalty area.

Instead, Villa left Selhurst Park with all three points, their first maximum in the Premier League in nine attempts, thanks to Christian Benteke’s first-half strike.

The Eagle boss said: “I cannot fault the effort of the players, they started really well and created some good chances, but we just lacked that bit of quality.

“We need a predator in the box, like Benteke is for Villa. He held Villa together, and it would be nice to have a player like that.

“His goal was disappointing because we’ve given it to him, Scott Dann should have cleared the ball over the stand, but he’ll learn.”

He added: “I spoke to the ref about the Fraizer Campbell foul, but he was not in a good position to see the defender’s arm across Fraizer, he’s watching [Yannick] Bolasie cross the ball.

“And why would Fraizer go down when all he had to do was head the ball home?

“We’ll just dust ourselves down and go again at Tottentham.”

The decisive moment came just after the half-hour mark when Benteke robbed Dann of possession, before racing on goal to slide the ball past Julian Speroni.

But Palace could have been clear before then save for a lack of quality from the normally reliant crossing boot of Zaha, and the US keeper Brad Guzan blocking everything Dwight Gayle and Bolasie could throw at him.

Even when the crossing was accurate, a mixture of misfortune and desperate defending spared Guzan’s clean sheet.

The win lifted Villa to 12th in the table, while Palace, ahead of Wednesday night’s games, remain just two points above the drop zone.

They go to Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday ahead of a schedule of four games in two weeks.

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