Palace Take Stunning Lead To Florence For Second Leg

After what has been three weeks without a game, the fans and players certainly made up for that on a brilliant night in South London.

MATCH INFORMATION

PLAYER RATINGS

UNUSED SUBSTITUTES; 17 Nathaniel CLYNE, 24 Borna SOSA, 31 Remi MATTHEWS, 34 Chadi RIAD, 44 Walter BENITEZ, 55 Justin DEVENNY, 59 Rio CARDINES

UNUSED SUBSTITUTES; 23 E KOSPO, 50 R LEONARDELLI, 53 O CHRISTENSEN, 60 E KOUADIO, 61 R BRASCHI, 64 L DELI

POST GAME QUOTES

OLIVER GLASNER

“More importantly for me was the performance, in the first half and then let’s say the last 20 minutes. Brilliant, fantastic performance, great pressure, playing well and always attacking the box, the balls in behind. We knew that they are very compact but we were going in behind and creating so many chances, which was great to see.

We lost the ball too easily and quickly at times, the game was too wild, it was up and down, when you are 2-0 up, you should get more control. We had four or five easy ball losses and that gave the momentum to Fiorentina. I was pleased to see we didn’t get frustrated against a very good team from Italy, kept our heads up and knew we could get the momentum again. In the end, we were really close to scoring the fourth goal and it was a great performance.”

JEAN-PHILIPPE MATETA

“What a night. I dreamed about scoring that goal for nights. I did and I am so happy. They [the fans] know me, I keep working hard. They know I am always here and hopefully we can finish the job in Italy.”

MATCH STATISTICS

BOB’S POINT OF VIEW

Bob White was a coach at Palace under the tenure of Steve Coppell and Alan Smith and will be sharing his point of view each week in our review article.

“Tonight goes down in the Palace annals of special games featured at Selhurst Park. A perfect alignment of a great atmosphere created by both sets of supporters together with an open game played out by both teams. In total a European evening to remember for those of us who were there to witness the game.

Overall Palace, apart from a 15-minute spell in the second half, gave a controlled, disciplined and smart European performance. Two goals in the first half underlined this control whilst a late third goal should prove to be a decisive factor in deciding the outcome of the tie.

An excellent team performance based on solid defending which gave Fiorentina few goal scoring opportunities allowed our creative players to regularly test the opponents back line. In possession Wharton, Kamada and Munoz especially were outstanding whilst Pino was excellent when coming off the bench. The Spaniard showed all the technical qualities we know he has in his armoury and it was refreshing to see him play with complete confidence in possession.

A salutary reminder to everyone that we are only at half-time in the tie, but if we aren’t complacent in our approach next Thursday then a semi-final place beckons. Up the Palace!”

TEB VERDICT

While it is only half time in this European quarter final tie, none of us could have expected what we all witnessed under the lights at Selhurst Park.

A quite superb performance where an energetic high press threatened to blow away the esteemed visitors away in the first leg. While the Eagles should perhaps have added to their tally, a 3-0 home victory to take to Florence and defend is outstanding.

The three-week break between fixtures looks to have done the squad the world of good, as they made the Italian side look very ordinary, with the Palace fans playing a huge part in an evening to remember at Selhurst.

It is hard not to get too carried away with a visit to Italy to come next Thursday, but you cannot blame fans for already looking at the next destination. The players and the management have given us all that confidence even though there is still work to be done.

This was a real team effort but you cannot ignore the stand outs in Adam Wharton and Diachi Kamada bossing the middle of park, ably supported by Daniel Munoz always being and option and the tireless running of Ismaila Sarr who deserved what could end up being an all-important last-minute goal.

UPCOMING FIXTURES