Crystal Palace manager Oliver Glasner says something 'crazy' happened in his side's 2-2 draw with Aston Villa
Aston Villa came from behind twice to draw 2-2 with Crystal Palace on Saturday afternoon
Crystal Palace boss Oliver Glasner feels a ‘crazy’ three-minute spell in his side’s 2-2 draw with Aston Villa highlights why “we all love football”. Palace picked up an important point at Villa Park as they took the lead twice in Birmingham but could not hold on for victory.
Ismaila Sarr opened the scoring after four minutes before Ollie Watkins levelled for the home side with 36 minutes gone. Then, a frantic end to the first half saw the visitors go ahead again. VAR awarded a penalty to the home side but it was saved by Dean Henderson with Palace going up the other end to score through Justin Devenny. Ross Barkley snatched a point for the hosts with 77 minutes gone.
“I think this is why we all love football,” the Palace manager said of the dramatic end to the first half. “This is why all the stadiums are full. Within three minutes, it's three times up and down. The game keeps going, and then all of a sudden the VAR intervenes. It's very unusual that the VAR intervenes here in the Premier League, and then it's a penalty. You are down, you have a big save, you are up, and then they get the corner, and from this corner we scored 2-1, and then we are on top. It’s really crazy what sometimes happens in football, but that's why I think we all love it.”
He added: “I'm very proud of the performance the team showed today. Because they came here having many injuries, especially in our attack, and then playing always forward, trying to score goals, scoring two amazing goals, this makes me proud. Justin Devenny, second start, scoring his first goal for us. I think it was his best performance today for us.
“Then fighting as a team, that's really very, very positive. On the other side, I think if you have twice the lead, you want to take the win back to London, so this is maybe the not-so-positive part of the game. But the performance was quite good, and the style, the belief, the togetherness was quite good. I think we're on the right pathway, getting a point here at Villa is a good result for us. And now we want to improve our performance to take the win against Newcastle, because this will be necessary.”