Luka Milivojevic: Crystal Palace lost control at the end of derby defeat to West Ham

BY MATT WOOSNAM

Crystal Palace captain Luka Milivojevic admitted his team lost control towards the end of their 3-2 defeat by West Ham – after picking up two yellow cards late on.

Palace led through James McArthur but three second-half goals saw the Hammers come back, before Jeffrey Schlupp’s consolation.

Wilfried Zaha and James Tomkins picked up bookings which rule them out of Saturday’s home fixture with Leicester City.

Zaha’s arrived first, with a needless late challenge on Pablo Zabaleta in the first minute of four in stoppage time at the end of the game. Tomkins’ name went into the referee’s notebook for dissent after the final whistle.

The defender was angered at what he perceived to be an injustice for the free-kick which led to the hosts’ second goal. He believed Andy Carroll had tripped over his own feet, but Anthony Taylor saw the former West Ham man as culpable for the fall and awarded the foul. Felipe Anderson’s effort was parried as far as Javier Hernandez who made no mistake.

Milivojevic revealed that maintaining discipline was something that the Eagles had spoken about ahead of the derby.

“That’s something we said before the game. To pick up two yellow cards – Tomkins and Wilf in the last minute – it’s something we didn’t have to do but there was a lot of emotion.

“Maybe in that moment we lost a bit of control and didn’t think about it because we were thinking about the result, trying to score. The two yellow cards came and made the picture even worse.”

The Serbian midfielder insisted that the team must keep their heads and work together to get back on the right track after following up victory over Burnley last weekend with two defeats including a disappointing 3-1 reverse at rivals Brighton in midweek.

“Football is a lot of up and down, sometimes emotion is the problem.

“When you win you’re very excited because you get three points, you played a good game and you have confidence. On Tuesday and Saturday we’ve lost two games and it’s very disappointing because I know what we can do. This kind of situation happens a lot in football but we just have to stay as a unit, strong as a team and try to win the next game to change the mood.

“We have had many good games this season where we didn’t pick up any points. When you play well in games and don’t pick up a lot of points, you can say you miss something.”

Milivojevic brushed off suggestions that this weekend’s game is any different to any other, and insisted that the Eagles will work hard to bounce back.

“You can call it what you like but ‘must-win’ – every single game we are going to win. Even when you play a big opponent you prepare to win.

“What will happen will happen, all we can do is put a lot of work in training to transform the game. But next week will be harder because we will miss two very important players against Leicester.”