Marc Guéhi said he viewed parts of Crystal Palace’s second-half performance on Saturday evening as a sign of “what’s to come” for his side in 2022, with the south Londoners almost fighting from 0-3 down to draw with West Ham United.
Palace conceded three times in an otherwise well-matched first-half, and returned for the second looking hungry to rescue a point. Goals from Michael Olise and Odsonne Edouard almost achieved this minutes from full-time, but it wasn’t to be for Patrick Vieira’s men.
Looking back on the clash, Guéhi said: “I think the overall performance as a team was good. But in football it comes down to both boxes, and we could have been better in our box defensively. They didn’t have many chances on goal.
“Obviously at the other end we could have created a few, we could have scored… we feel a bit hard done by and hopefully we can put it right in the next game.
“I think we just have to keep the belief. That second-half performance was hopefully what’s to come. Hopefully we can put the mistakes behind us and try to rectify what we did tonight and push on.
“In the second-half we were fantastic and hopefully for the rest of the season and year we can show that.”
Despite entering half-time behind, Guéhi says he and his teammates were relatively confident; a view shared by fellow centre-back Joachim Andersen.
The England Under-21 international went on the explain the mood at the break, saying: “I don’t want to say [it was] positive but it was a feeling that: just stay resilient in the game. Go back into the game with the belief we could get something from it and the second-half performance showed it – two goals late on. We’d have loved to get the third one but it was unfortunate.”
Finally, Guéhi was asked to comment on three teammates: goalkeeper Vicente Guaita, who made a sensational triple save in the first-half, and the absent Conor Gallagher and Wilfried Zaha.
He said: “[Guaita’s triple save] was fantastic. We have a fantastic goalkeeper in Vicente who’s saved us on many occasions this season, and he did so again today.
“[And Gallagher and Zaha are] massive players. Their performances this season have been fantastic for us but I think the boys that have come in have done really well, shown a desire, a want to get in the side and play well for us. The boys that have played so far have done really well.”
