Van Aanholt & Puncheon On Boro Win

Goalscorer on the day Patrick van Aanholt and Jason Puncheon were both speaking following Saturday’s victory over Middlesbrough.

Hosting Aitor Karanka’s side at Selhurst Park for the match, van Aanholt’s goal gave us all three points and a first home win with Sam Allardyce.

Beginning with Puncheon, he told Crystal Palace FC that everybody knew how ‘massively important’ that three points could turn out to be for us.

‘I think it was massively important to get out of the relegation zone and it was important to get the three points, especially with it being at home and our home form being what it was. I know we’ve been saying it for a long time, but now we need to grasp this and push on. We created a lot of chances today against a team that had a back five that wanted to sit there and hit us on the counter. We did well and created a lot of chances, on another day it could have been an even better scoreline. We have to use that. I thought the fans were fantastic from the moment we went out for the warm up and we led them on as well with the start we had. The chances came and now we’ve got to build on that and take that on to West Brom.’

With van Aanholt getting the goal, our skipper on the day and for the first time ever, had praise for him and the impact he’s had since coming into the club.

‘He’s been brilliant since he’s come in, he’s lifted us and he deserved his goal today.’

As for van Aanholt himself, he was thrilled to get his goal and play such a telling part in returning three points for the club.

‘It was an unbelievable moment for me – for myself and my teammates and for the club. It was a good three points. We were very good defensively. In the first half we came out and were dominant – like: ‘we’re here to win this game’ – we created a lot of chances, Christian had a couple of chances in the box and I’m very happy I scored the goal.’

Van Aanholt added.

‘We trained very hard because we didn’t have a game last week and after that we got a couple of days off, because rest is also important. We came back together, worked hard in the week and that’s paid off today. I think we showed everyone we were up for winning the game today and we did. The atmosphere was unbelievable today. It was my second home game and throughout the whole game they showed us support.’