Joel Ward was a very happy man at the full time whistle in the game against Queens Park Rangers yesterday, not only was it another three points towards safety this season, but his 42nd minute goal was his first strike for us since coming in from Bournemouth back in the summer of 2012.
98 games later, he has finally opened his Palace account.
Speaking to Crystal Palace FC following the three one victory, the full back talked firstly about the victory and what it meant for the club – especially as it was our first win in the last four attempts on home soil.
‘I think it was a professional performance from us, we knew how big an occasion it was and how big a gap it would put between us and the bottom three so it’s a very good job from us. We stayed professional and everyone did their job to make sure we came out on top. The boys showed great desire to get their goals, Punch and Wilf for the first and Macca with the second, which ultimately put us in a great position to build on that.’
As for his own duck, and getting that first Palace goal he added.
‘It’s a relief to finally get on the scoresheet for Palace so I’m really pleased with it. It’s come onto my left foot and I thought ‘if you don’t shoot you don’t score’ and it’s gone on target so I’m pleased.’
It’s far from job done though and with manager Alan Pardew calling on the team to look up the table now and see who else we can catch, Ward admits that this will be the aim as nobody can relax until we are mathematically safe from the drop at least.
‘We’ve got a job to do and we’re going to get as many points as we can but we won’t stop until the end. We want to keep the gap as big as possible so we’ll go about our jobs in the best way to give ourselves the chance to finish as high as we can.’
Part of that is to continue improving our home form as that has been talked about a lot in recent weeks.
‘Our home form has needed to improve and I think we did that today by picking up the three points. I think it gives us the momentum and confidence to build on that and move forward and start looking above us to catch those in front of us.’
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