Wayne Hennessey warned after mistake at Man City costs Crystal Palace

Alan Pardew called for a reaction from Wayne Hennessey after another mistake contributed to Crystal Palace's defeat at Manchester City.

The goalkeeper's fumble gifted Aston Villa victory in midweek, and he allowed Fabian Delph to open the scoring at the Etihad as a long-range strike squirmed under his dive.

City went on to win 4-0 as Palace left space chasing the game, and Pardew did not pull his punches in a post-match interview with Sky Sports.

"Wayne should have saved it", was the verdict of the manager, whose backing for Hennessey came with a caveat.

"He's made a couple of costly mistakes this week, and I need to see a reaction from him - the ball's firmly in his court, but he deserves me to give him that opportunity and I will."

Palace should have been ahead as early as the third minute when Damien Delaney planted a header too close to Joe Hart, and Pardew felt fine margins decided the game despite the final scoreline.

"Damo's not particularly renowned for his goalscoring ability, but he had a great chance and really he should do better," he said. "But there's a lot of things I was pleased about. We've passed the ball well, competed so much better than we did at Villa.

"I can't remember a team playing as well here and getting that kind of scoreline. We haven't done much wrong here -we've had chances, we've hit the target on three or four occasions, we've had a fair amount of possession and got beat 4-0.

"It's hard to take, but by the same token we've made mistakes and that's what's cost us, particularly on the first goal."

Connor Wickham started his first game since returning from four weeks out and was praised by Pardew, who was again asked about the possibility of signing Emmanuel Adebayor after a fifth Premier League game without a goal.

"We'll just have to see how it goes," he said. "With Connor up to speed it'll give us a different dimension, but five games without a goal is a statistic we don't want.

"Everybody's in our thinking - I don't know who Barnet's striker is but we'll probably have a look at him as well! Whoever it is it'll hopefully help the situation we're in.

"Sometimes you just need a goal out of nothing. Man City got that today - it should have been saved, they didn't deserve it and it gave them the platform to go on and win."