Palace buried their goal-shy start to the season against Cheltenham with a seven goal romp that threatened to break their all-time record cup win.

When Palace's sixth goal went in after 75 minutes, the club's thirteen-year-old 8-0 record league cup win against Southend, looked under threat. But it took another 15 minutes for Freedman to add his second and Palace's seventh to round off a morale-boosting night for the Eagles.

After struggling past Plymouth Argyle in the first round and failing to score in five league games this season, no one could have expected this goal-fest. And as the players trooped off after a turgid first-half the mood of the 4,901 fans in Selhurst Park was hardly jubilant, despite seeing Dele Adebola's first goal for Palace, a tap-in after Freedman's shot was saved.

But Trevor Francis made crucial changes at half-time, replacing the ineffective Tommy Black with Julian Gray, and switching from a 3-5-2 to a 4-4-2 with Hayden Mullins joining Shaun Derry in central midfield.

The impact was instant and two minutes after the restart Derry found Wayne Routledge, whose pin-point cross was met by Mullins' head for 2-0.

Five minutes later Tony Popovic met Danny Butterfield's corner with an unstoppable header for his third of the season.

Just a minute later the outstanding Mullins won a tackle and played a defence-splitting pass for Freedman to slot home.

Freedman, overlooked on Wednesday for the Scotland squad to face Iceland in favour of legends like WBA's Scott Dobie and Sunderland's Kevin Kyle, delivered the perfect riposte to Berti Vogts with an outstanding performance and brace to take his season's tally to five.

Adebola added his second on 74 minutes bullet-heading a Routledge corner home before Richard Walker scored an own goal under pressure.

The chances kept coming and Freedman went close with his head, before collecting Mullins' pass to round poor Steve Book and finish cheekily with his knee.

Dean Austin replaced the injured Darren Powell and Academy defender Will Antwi replaced Popovic for his senior debut while on-loan keeper Nic Michopoulos made an outstanding save from Lee Williams.

All in all a brilliant night for the Eagles.

Palace: Michopoulos, Butterfield, Granville, Mullins, Powell (Austin 22), Popovic (Antwi 66), Black (Gray 46), Derry, Adebola, Freedman, Routledge.

October 4, 2002 16:30