Cardiff City’s run without a victory stretched to nine matches with this draw and they slid out of the Coca-Cola Championship play-offs places, having been top of the table in November.

Dave Jones, the Cardiff manager, said: “I’m glad the year is out of the way. Hopefully, we can try and bring in some fresh faces in January.”

Cardiff lacked the confidence to convert their chances. When they did shoot on target, Willo Flood and Ricardo Scimeca were denied by two great saves from Scott Flinders, the Crystal Palace goalkeeper.

Twenty minutes from time, Clinton Morrison put the ball in the net, but the visiting team were left feeling disgruntled by a flag for offside. Moments earlier, Jobi McAnuff had directed a free header from close range over the bar.

McAnuff, who signed for Palace from Cardiff, said: “It would have been nice to have scored here, but we did all right and got a decent result.”

The 25-year-old midfield player said that Palace had not had the greatest of years. “From losing in the play-offs semi-finals to not having a great start to the season, but we’ve done all right over Christmas,” he said.

“It’s a bit weird because I went to Palace hoping that we’d be going up and at the time Cardiff were struggling and having a few problems. It was a bit of an uncertain time, so it’s nice to see they’ve sorted things out.”

Watford are rumoured to be interested in coaxing McAnuff to Vicarage Road, but the player plans to stay put. He said: “I had a good chat with the chairman at the start of the season and I’ll definitely be staying until the end of the season. Hopefully, by then we’ll be in and around the play-offs if we can get on a good run.”

Cardiff City (4-4-2): N Alexander — K Gilbert, D Purse, G Loovens, K McNaughton (sub: K Cooper, 78min) — W Flood (sub: D Blake, 90), R Scimeca, S McPhail, J Ledley — S Thompson (sub: K Campbell, 90), M Chopra. Substitutes not used: R Johnson, A Wright. Booked: McNaughton, Thompson, Gilbert.

Crystal Palace (4-4-2): S Flinders — D Butterfield, M Hudson, D Ward, M Lawrence — B Watson (sub: M Reich, 75), C Fletcher, M Kennedy, J McAnuff — J Scowcroft, C Morrison (sub: S Kuqi, 85). Substitutes not used: D Wilkinson, D Freedman, L Cort. Booked: Morrison.

Referee: M Jones.