Honours even between Brighton and Crystal Palace as rivals take a point each for their survival cause

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Honours even, bragging rights split and, possibly, a point closer to safety for all concerned. Crystal Palace travelled to Brighton hoping a win against their most-hated rivals could help propel them up the table but a 0-0 draw in freezing East Sussex saw the spoils shared on a night when either could have won but neither could stomach a loss.

More than 90 minutes of huff and puff produced not a single goal, though Palace do at least look a functional team again and Brighton continue not to look out of place in the Premier League.

In the end, the most explosive thing on show was the series of firecrackers and smoke bombs going off in the away end, which will only add to questions over the policing of a game where Palace fans with tickets were turned away at the turnstiles.

At its best, though, this match boasted exactly the sort of frenetic attacking play you’d expect from a derby game, with the tricky duo of Anthony Knockaert and Wilfried Zaha the most dangerous man on either side.

But when the play slowed down enough for a sequence of passes to break out, it was as if the players could suddenly remember what this rivalry meant to those in the stands, and sterile possession gave way to nervy passes and players looking to take the easy way out for fear of a mistake the fans would never let them forget.

With that in mind, it was the errors that more obviously betrayed this game’s derby status than the sort of bone-crunching tackles that made this rivalry what it is in the 1970s.

Well, that and the steady stream of pyrotechnics emerging from the Crystal Palace end. Their team showed that level of spark only in fits and starts, but started the better and should undoubtedly have taken the lead in the opening exchanges, only for Zaha to be denied by the second act of an outstanding double-save from Albion goalkeeper Mat Ryan.

Christian Benteke might have scored before him, but the Australian got down well to parry. He had no right to get to Zaha’s follow-up but managed to steer it wide and keep Brighton in the game, not for the first time this season and surely not the last.

Benteke’s return to the starting line-up after a lengthy lay-off was a boost to Roy Hodgson, who only counts on one senior striker in his squad. But the Belgian didn’t look fully fit and was more danger as a decoy than his usual marauding self.

Helping nullify Benteke’s goal threat while providing his own, the player who marked him for much of the evening was the man who had Brighton’s two best chances. Lewis Dunk headed a Pascal Gross corner too close to Wayne Hennessey before the break, but his near-post backheel that went narrowly wide just after half-time was probably even more dangerous with the defence and keeper caught napping.

Gross’s sensational set-piece delivery continued to be Brighton’s biggest threat as the game wore on, and the hosts looked the more likely scorers as the game wore on.

Even when the German had departed, replaced by Izzy Brown, a late Knockaert corner had the Eagles in all sorts of trouble, with Hennessey desperately clambering to keep his good friend and former Palace teammate Glenn Murray from scoring the decisive goal – as he had done in red and blue stripes against his current employers back in 2011.

The final minutes were frantically sloppy, with enough desperation to win from both sides but not enough quality when it mattered to carry through on such intent. By the end, Brighton were content with keeping Zaha out of dangerous areas and Palace seemed happy enough to extend their unbeaten streak to three and pick up a first away point.

Next time these two meet it will be mid-April, and the stakes are likely to be far higher. It won’t just be rivalry in play, but almost certainly relegation.

Brighton: Ryan, Saltor, Duffy, Dunk, Suttner, Knockaert, Gross, Stephens, Propper, Izquierdo, Murray.

Substitutes: Kayal, Hemed, Goldson, March, Schelotto, Krul, Brown.

Crystal Palace: Hennessey, Ward, Tomkins, Sakho, Schlupp, Cabaye, Milivojevic, Zaha, Loftus-Cheek, Townsend, Benteke.

Substitutes: Speroni, Van Aanholt, Dann, McArthur, Fosu-Mensah, Sako, Puncheon.