IAN Holloway praised his Crystal Palace side after the leaders eased to a 3-0 success over Derby to maintain their title push.

Glenn Murray (2) and Andre Moritz wrapped up another victory for the in-form Eagles, who extended their unbeaten run to 14 games in the process.

Holloway has yet to drop any points since taking over from Dougie Freedman and was proud as punch after witnessing another faultless display from his new charges.

The Selhurst chief said: “Wilf was a bit quieter than he usually is but we are starting to look a bit of a handful and I think Murray, up the middle, he was absolutely fantastic today.

“His second goal was as good as I’ve seen, his strength to hold him off, then to come in and flip it over him.

“I’m delighted for Moritz as well, another goal for him.

“It looked like he tired a bit but I’m very, very pleased with everybody.

“This is a guy who has done nothing wrong, he has played his part in every single game and he did again today.

“But I just felt we needed to take the game to them early on if we were going to do anything, try and get behind their midfield line a little bit.

“We had a feeling they would play five across there so we talked about getting in little pockets and trying to get the ball in there.

“It was nice to get the early goal from a set piece.

“The lads are great at them, their structure is fantastic, their discipline at remembering their jobs is great and it gave us a bit of a ladder up because it was really close the first half I thought.

“But the longer it goes on, the more I believe we are going to try and get another chance and a breakaway.

“At the moment we are sticking them in so I’m delighted for the lads, I thought everything about them was really professional today.”

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