OLIVER Glasner was blown away by the intensity his side showed in the opening half hour of their 2-0 win over Newcastle United on Wednesday evening – so much so he thought he would have to make a host of substations.
Jean-Philippe Mateta scored twice in the second half – bringing his tally for the season to eleven in the league, eight of them in nine games under Glasner – as the Eagles won a third successive match.
The result mathematically secured Palace’s Premier League status for next season.
“The first 30 minutes, with the intensity we brought I was really scared”, Glasner said. “That’s not a joke. I was scared if they continued playing like this I would need then substitutions. I couldn’t believe what I saw. I was really surprised we pressed them so high for such a long time.
“It was a great performance and all the credit to the players for the performance, for the energy, for the intensity and for the offensive way of playing always trying to score goals.
“Of course it is a good feeling now to have completed mission number one: staying in the Premier League mathematically.
“Yes, it is a good feeling and I hope the players get addicted to winning games, to this feeling, to this emotion.”
Mateta has scored in five home league games in a row.
Glasner added: “It is all about that we are a unit on the pitch and then of course the strikers are then in the position where they can score and then can show their quality.
“He has a lot of qualities and he now has the confidence. The second goal was one touch with the left-foot.
“Now for me it is important we stay humble.
“For us, it’s staying hungry and staying ambitious because everything we do we do for our club, for our fans and for us as a group.
“Now we feel how good it is, everyone knows how good it is to win a game.
“Since the Liverpool game now we’re flying on a cloud and it is so nice there because it is sunny, not rainy like below the cloud. We want to keep this feeling until the end of the season.”
Palace travel to Fulham on Saturday.
Glasner said: “Now we go for four in a row. A very famous coach in Germany once said that after a game is always [also] before a game.”
Glasner gave an update on defender Marc Guehi. “He’s been part of the sessions this week. We expect him back with the team next week and let’s see if he’s back in the squad for Manchester United.”
Meanwhile, Magpies boss Eddie Howe struggled to explain his side’s display after they had three wins and a draw in their previous four games, including a 4-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur before they travelled to Selhurst Park.
Howe said: “We were very disappointed with the performance, from the high of Tottenham to the low of tonight. We were disappointing in most aspects of our play.
“We have to take responsibility for that. Maybe the gap between games didn’t help us on reflection but still we knew that gap was there and we had to perform better than we did today. It is a missed opportunity for us.”
