News from the camp of the nearest opponent of Kyiv’s Dynamo in the main stage of the Conference League. The head coach of English Crystal Palace, Oliver Glasner, commented on his team’s victory over West Ham (2:1) in yesterday’s match of the 5th round of the English championship.
“I think we had a very good first half, fully controlling the game. And we had a great moment right after the break (when Maxence Lacroix hit the crossbar with a header, — ed.), but then the score suddenly became 1:1, and the dynamics of the match changed. For the next 15 minutes, West Ham played better than us. They changed their formation a bit — in the first half, they played with four defenders, and in the second, one of their wingers dropped down, so they had five defenders too.
But the credit goes to our players for being able to turn the tide again and regain our confidence. It was clear that West Ham got nervous. So it was a deserved victory. Although we could have achieved it a little easier.
We are on a great wave right now. The team hasn’t lost a single match this season, achieving its second away victory, so everything is going according to plan. The players believe in what we are doing. I also told the team that, watching our game, I see a lot of positives, but at the same time, I still see a lot of potential that we have and which is yet to be revealed — this is not everything we can do. So I’m looking forward to another week of training and preparing for the game against Liverpool.
The season has just started, but we have made a good start. Now we will continue to work on ourselves to get better and better. Getting into fourth place in the EPL table? I never look at the table, especially in September. And I remember what happened last year: eight games without a win at the start of the Premier League. Three draws, five losses. We always kept an eye on our own game first. Of course, now everything is a bit calmer, but on the other hand, I never relax — we always need to improve our game. The better we perform, the more we progress, the better we will be at the end of the season,” Glasner said at the post-match press conference.