Glasner: Thank you for your support – we will keep going
Oliver Glasner says Crystal Palace will learn their lessons from Sunday's late 2-1 defeat at Everton – his team’s first loss since April, bringing to an end the club’s all-time longest unbeaten run in all competitions.
The Eagles were well on top in the first-half and fully deserving of the lead which Daniel Muñoz gave them shortly before the interval, as the Colombian rounded off a fine team move involving Marc Guéhi, Yeremy Pino and Ismaïla Sarr.
But despite continuing to create plentiful more chances after the restart, two late defensive errors saw the Toffees turn things around inside the final 15 minutes to inflict a painful first loss of the season on Palace.
Glasner told Palace TV: “It's disappointing and very painful because it's completely unnecessary. It's our fault, it's our responsibility. We played so well over 60 or 70 minutes with enough chances to decide the game.
“[Tiredness] would be a cheap excuse. We're never looking for excuses. We could have decided it in the first 60 minutes, and we had then fresh legs on the pitch.
“That's the missing link to be a top team in the Premier League, to take the chances to decide the game when you can decide it. We made one mistake in defence – we don't make many mistakes in our defence – we made one, they got the penalty and the game was open.
“Then it was ‘okay, who gets the lucky punch and takes it’. Today it was Everton, last week we had the lucky punch, so that's football.
"Again, I've seen over 60-70 minutes, a fantastic performance from us."
Thank you very much for your fantastic support again
—Oliver Glasner
Looking back on his side’s near-six month unbeaten run, which also saw Palace set a new club record for consecutive Premier League matches without defeat (12), Glasner admitted: “It’s even more painful because we didn't have this feeling for now almost six months.
“And on the other side, I told the players right after the game that it's the next chapter in Crystal Palace's history, after winning two trophies, the longest unbeaten run, so they can be very proud about it. Now it's ‘okay, we have to start another run’.”
Palace were once again backed to the hilt by a tremendous travelling support at the Hill Dickinson Stadium, thousands of Eagles supporters battling stormy conditions to journey North and roar on their side only days – in some cases, mere hours – after returning from Poland.
“Thank you very much for your fantastic support again,” Glasner said. “And also, at the end, they supported the team, they appreciated the effort and I think the performance.
“It's time for us also to deal with this negative emotion after defeat. I hope we don't have it too often, so we will give everything to start with a win after the international break.
“But today, thank you for your support – and we keep going.”