‘Any other player!’ – Wilf Zaha foiled by former Palace team-mate as Eagles strike late to deny Manchester United maximum points
Wilfried Zaha admitted that Aaron Wan-Bissaka was the last Manchester United player he wanted chasing him as the Crystal Palace attacker looked to seal a dramatic late win for Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park tonight.
The Eagles looked on their way to defeat until Michael Olise struck a sublime free-kick past David de Gea in the first minute of stoppage time.
Picture : Keith Gillard
And Zaha had a break after that only for his former team-mate Wan-Bissaka, linked with a return to SE25 in the January window, to make a last-ditch sliding tackle.
“Any other player,” the Palace attacker told Sky Sports. “As I’m running through, I had a little look back and I thought ‘oh my god…it’s Aaron’. He’s the only one that can do a scoop tackle. So it was a great tackle.
“Amazing obviously (talking about Olise’s free-kick). We know we’ve got the talent and the team. And one thing that the gaffer’s piped on about is just contesting the games and the talent just shows through in the end – like today, we managed to get a point.
“That was the difference today – just never-say-die attitude and every 50-50 going in at 100 per cent. We got what we deserved. We might have even won at the end.
“That performance today, the fans deserved that. I’m buzzing with the lads really, like we all worked so hard today. Obviously we’re happy with the point and it just gives us confidence going into the next games.”
Picture : Keith Gillard
Palace midfielder Will Hughes added: “We’ve been going through a difficult period of late and sometimes you need a bit of magic like that from those sort of players. We’ve got plenty of it in the team, Olise, Ebs, Wilf. We’ve got got individual talent. It’s a good point in the end.
“It’s fine margins. Like Wilf said, we know we’ve got the talent in the squad, but of late it’s doing the basics – winning your duels and contesting. We did a lot of that tonight and sometimes you get the rub of the green.”
PICTURE: KEITH GILLARD
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