Palace Hand Larnaca Surprise Conference League Win

The Cypriots made it back to back victories in the Conference League by causing an upset in South London and spoiling Palace’s first home match in European competition proper.

MATCH INFORMATION

PLAYER RATINGS

UNUSED SUBSTITUTES – 17 Nathaniel CLYNE, 26 Chris RICHARDS, 31 Remi MATTHEWS, 42 Kaden RODNEY, 44 Walter BENITEZ, 55 Justin DEVENNY, 59 Rio CARDINES

UNUSED SUBSTITUTES – 2 Patros IOANNOU, 10 Waldo RUBIO, 22 Godswill EKPOLO, 29 Giorgos NAOUM, 41 Mathias GONZALEZ, 99 Demetric DEMETRIOU

POST GAME QUOTES

OLIVER GLASNER

“That is European football. You must learn from it. Small mistakes get punished and on the other side we had enough chances to win the game. It is not just the story of today, but many games. The effort was there, we were creating situations against a deep block. We had four or five big opportunities to score and we didn’t and we make one mistake and you can lose a game like this.

It is part of the game. If you don’t score, you can’t win. We lost a point. It is disappointing, it is frustrating and it hurts but on the other side we keep going. We have enough games. We had enough clear chances and then you lose sometimes. We have to learn from it.”

MARC GUEHI

“They scored, we didn’t, it’s that simple. Every team comes with a different type of game plan. Today it was a team that sat back. Even though they did that, we still could have scored. It’s an opportunity for us to learn and move on.

We always believe right to the end and we have proved it in different games, just today it wasn’t. This is all good. You get to learn. It is a new experience for the club and hopefully we have more that we can grow from in these competitions.

“When it’s 0-0 and you feel you should be winning it is understandable to feel frustration, not only fans, us on the pitch. Everyone had the same feeling. It is good opportunity to learn and understand that these European games are tough no matter who you play against.”

MATCH STATISTICS

TEB VERDICT

All the build up to a night of what should have been celebration ended in disappointment as Larnaca surprised the hosts by taking all three points.

The difference on the night was a defensive error which handed the visitors an opportunity to take the lead, and they made no mistake shortly after the break.

It was another game where the Eagles struggled to get around the low block, and not the first time in this competition. You could also argue that the hosts were beaten by their own inexperience in European competition as some of the antics by the Cypriots were left a lot to be desired.

Take nothing away from Larnaca, they did a job on Palace and Oliver Glasner who had no answer to get Palace back level at least by the full-time whistle, which was much to do with poor finishing as enough chances were created but ultimately wasted.

Perhaps the opposition were underestimated, but that is not Glasner and his coaching staff. You have to put this one down to a poor team performance on the night and an element of naivety. Park the result and make amends at home to AZ Alkmaar in a couple of weeks.  

LEAGUE POSITION

UPCOMING FIXTURES