The Eagles were in command throughout the 90 minutes against a spirited Dynamo side in Lublin, but were forced to bide their time for a breakthrough, before high-quality finishes from Daniel Muñoz and Eddie Nketiah got our league phase off to the best possible start.
The Palace Manager said after the match: “We controlled the game or most of the time – just after the red card [for Borna Sosa], the pressure was a little bit more – but overall I think we deserved the win.
“We knew that they [Dynamo Kyiv] had played in the back five against AS Roma, for example, last year, so it was not completely surprising, yes, but it was a little bit [that they started that way tonight].
“Credit to the players, because we scored a very nice goal with Dani Munoz. This was one of our habits against a deep block, going in behind. We had two more big chances, and I think it was a completely deserved win.
“It looks like teams [in Europe] react more to the way we are playing, so in the Premier League every team plays its style, their system, once or twice it happens that the opposition changes their system, and now we’ve two opponents with Fredrikstad and Kyiv, and both teams started in a different system than we expected.
“Maybe this is a little bit different, and we will see if this continues, but it is not difficult to prepare the team, because they are so hungry to succeed, and so ambitious, and of course we want to keep them pushing, and it is really easy to keep the focus high.”
