Sam Allardyce spoke at a press conference in preparation for their Saturday’s home game against Burnley, and one of the issues he addressed was their 0-1 loss to Tottenham Hotspur at Selhurst Park.
“I thought the performance in the first half was much better than Sunday,” he said, making reference to their hard-fought 2-1 win over Liverpool.
Christian Benteke scored a brace to topple The Reds, who scored an early goal through Phillippe Coutinho in the 24th minute.
“We took the game to Tottenham whenever we possibly could which is not an easy task with the quality that they’ve got,” Big Sam said.
“The lack of recovery time for us from Sunday to tonight told in the end and that made us not able to challenge Tottenham as much as we did in the first half, and they got in the game a little bit more.
“After that, it was about whether we could be as resilient defensively as we have been, but unfortunately with Eriksen’s goal we couldn’t. It was a terrific effort and a terrific performance, and the lads tried their very best to keep Tottenham out.”
Big Sam’s Scottish midfielder James McArthur also expressed his disappointment at the terrible loss. The former Wigan Athletic player admitted that leaving without a point from the game against EPL’s second place holders was devastating.
Speaking with reporters in an interview, McArthur said: “It was gutting for us all to lose after all we put into the game but we go again as we have another tough game coming up on Saturday against Burnley and now have a couple of days to try and prepare for that one.
“We defended very well as a team but they put us under a lot of pressure , we did limit them to chances outside the box and they scored with one of those, a very good strike.”
The central midfielder who plays for Scotland national team added that they deserved a better result for their performance in the game but expressed optimism.
McArthur was elated to be back in the team’s starting line-up and has hopes to feature in Saturday’s crucial game. He says the atmosphere is great, and believes his teammates have plenty of positives to take from their current run of form.
“It was nice to be back, that feeling of playing again is very nice,” he said. “I need to just try and get myself back in the side again.
“We still need to pick up points and try and finish as high as we possibly can.”
The player arrived Crystal Palace in the summer of 2014. Highlighting his belief and confidence in Big Sam’s team after the loss, he said: “There were a lot of positives from tonight’s performance, you have to look at how solid we look as a team.
Christian Benteke, a Belgian professional footballer, has proved himself a reliable striker with some amazing goal-scoring efforts.
Image: Christian Benteke
There’s no doubt that Allardyce’s men will take the games as they come, with hopes that Wilf and Adros will continue to live up to expectations in the the front-line.
With 38 points and just one behind Stoke City, Crystal Palace, also known as The Eagles are 12th place on the league table.
Both Bournemouth (#13) and West Ham United (#14) have 38 points from 34 games in the 2016/17 season.
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