Crystal Palace skipper Luka Milivojevic heeds Hodgson’s advice to keep his cool from twelve yards

BY MATT WOOSNAM

Crystal Palace captain Luka Milivojevic insisted he remained calm when stepping up to score the opening goal in his side’s 2-0 win over Huddersfield Town.

The Serbian has an impressive record when it comes to converting spot-kicks and made absolutely not mistake here after Wilfried Zaha was fouled, sending goalkeeper Ben Hamer the wrong way from 12 yards.

He revealed that boss Roy Hodgson had told the Eagles not to let their nerves affect them as they were met by a stubborn Huddersfield resistance in the first-half, and he himself showed no sign of any wavering when he confidently despatched his 9th penalty of this Premier League season.

“The message was to remain calm and not to react because we know as time moved on we would become more nervous. But we dealt with that very easily today, even though we missed a lot of chances.

“We changed the system second-half and we went to play with two strikers upfront.

“In the end I feel we deserved these three points and we are so happy we managed to keep a clean sheet as well.”

“I was not relaxed to shoot – it was not an easy game and especially when you miss a lot of chances.

“However, I had in my head that I needed to concentrate and decide where I want the penalty to go, to put it where I wanted; I think the penalty was decent but when the ball goes into the net we can say it was perfect.”