MARC Guehi felt there were plenty of positives to take from Crystal Palace’s 1-0 FA Cup third round exit at Goodison Park last night.
The Eagles were undone by Andre Gomes’ stunning free-kick shortly before the break to end their Wembley hopes.
But the visitors looked dangerous throughout, something England defender Guehi was keen to highlight afterwards.
He told Palace TV: “It was a good performance actually, spirited I thought. We were definitely unlucky to lose the game.
“We were definitely the better team – positive in our play, aggressive, making tackles and front footed.
“There is a lot of disappointment but a lot of positives to take.”
Guehi formed part of a new back three on a chilly Merseyside night, admitting he enjoyed the experience.
He explained: “It was good. The gaffer just thought it is a good idea to change the formation and catch them by surprise.
“I think it definitely worked.
“We found a lot of spaces for Ebz and Schluppy in the pockets to go and get expressive, so it was a positive.”
Guehi added: “It gives us a lot of options, a lot of security as well in defending with one man extra in the box against a team that loves to cross the ball a lot.
“It was definitely enjoyable.
“Like I said, I think we played well. It is fine little details that we need to brush up on.
“We need to work a bit harder on those things and show a bit more focus in training to make sure that we improve these things. We can turn things around because there is no point in coming to these places and playing well if you are not going to get anything out of the game.
“I think that is definitely the key message moving on from here.
“We will analyse this game, take the positives, learn from it and move on because we’ve got another big game against Arsenal at the weekend.”
With the trip to the Emirates firmly in his mind, manager Roy Hodgson made the controversial call to replace Eberechi Eze with Matheus Franca on 64 minutes.
That provoked chants of ‘you don’t know what you’re doing’ from the travelling contingent in the Bullens Road, a reaction the under-fire boss said he understood.
Hodgson explained: “We had to think very carefully about it. I appreciate for the fans it’s a long way to come.
“If I was a fan, I wouldn’t have wanted to see Eze taken off either, as he’s one of our best players.
“But I also would be extremely disappointed as a fan if he’d have played another 30 or 35 minutes and got injured in the process.
“That would have been extra disappointing.”
The SE25 boss added: “We play at 12.30pm on Saturday and we need people like Eze, who is one of our very best players.
“I would have loved all of my players to play 95 minutes, but we decided, in order to protect as many players as we can, that we would replace them with players who also deserved a chance to play.
“Even without him on the field, I thought we did enough to cause Everton problems and create goal chances.
“I would say in the last 20 minutes of the game, we had three or four exceptional goal chances.”
