Crystal Palace goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey: Atmosphere for Brighton derby will be incredible

Wayne Hennessey marked his return to the Crystal Palace side with a 2-1 win on Saturday against Stoke City at Selhurst Park.

Here he talks about Tuesday’s crunch derby with Brighton, replacing Julian Speroni in the starting line-up and also the Eagles’ second victory in the Premier League this season.

ON BRIGHTON
It’s a massive derby game for the whole club and particularly the supporters. We have some confidence now so hopefully we can carry this momentum into Tuesday because it’s going to be a really tough game. I came here from Wolves and experience the fierce rivalry that exists between them and West Brom so hopefully I can use that experience to produce a good performance. The atmosphere will be incredible and hopefully we can deliver another three points for the travelling fans. The entire team will be up for it. Wilf (Zaha) will be so excited for and that can only be a good thing for us because he’s so threatening on the ball and hopefully he can cause a bit of carnage against them.

ON BEING RESTORED TO STARTING ELEVEN
It’s nice to be playing again, I thought the boys were brilliant against Stoke. It was a cold afternoon for me because our defence was so solid! Julian (Speroni) came in and did well. I was a bit surprised to get the recall but thankfully it came off against Stoke and hopefully we can carry that into the Brighton game.

ON STOKE WIN
We got a bit of luck for a chance because that hasn’t always been the case this season. I wasn’t kept that busy for long periods of the game. But we’ve had a lot of games this season where we’ve been the better team and have not got our rewards, particularly against West Ham and Everton, so maybe we were due a bit of luck. Stoke will probably feel they played the better football but we got the win and that’s the way football goes sometimes.