CRYSTAL Palace must be hoping this Worthington Cup tie doesn't go to penalties in next Tuesday night's second leg after missing their fourth spot-kick of the season at Turf Moor last night.

Burnley's debutant keeper Nikolas Michopolous made a crucial save to keep out Fan Zhiyi's weak effort when Palace were leading 2-1.

And Andy Payton then went on to rub it in by levelling from the spot to leave the second-round clash tied at 2-2 and Palace boss Alan Smith a frustrated man.

"It's our fourth miss and that's disappointing but I don't want to harp on about it. Fan's a good player who had a good game for us but missed that one.

"It's amazing that we can score from 25 yards but we can't from 12 yards. We've tried four (penalty-takers) so we've still got another seven to go," he said, putting a brave face on the situation. Burnley came back from the dead at 2-0 down and for the second time in 11 days, Smith felt short-changed.

"We deserved to win the last game and we deserved to win this game," he said.

"I should be sitting here and this game should be finished but it's the second time we've let Burnley off the hook.

"Burnley scored from a corner and a penalty and we missed a penalty. That summed up the game." And Smith knows his side faces a tough fight to reverse the 1-0 League defeat of the weekend before last to book their place in the third round.

He added: "Even if we had gone in 2-0 up for the second leg we would still have had to beat Burnley. I have a great respect for Stan Ternent, I've known him for a long time and he demands a lot from his players. And if you have older players they realise that you can come back, where perhaps younger players don't."

Palace do at least have the potential advantage of two away goals but Smith insisted: "I wouldn't have settled for a 2-2 draw. But I think we played well and I can't complain about what the players have done.

"It was a great game of football where both sides tried to play." We certainly didn't come here to defend."

QUOTE: z " Coming from 2-0 down we think it's in our favour ." Sam Ellis, Burnley's assistant manager .