Crystal Palace’s first home game in a major European competition didn’t go to plan as they were beaten by AEK Larnaca, but manager Oliver Glasner said “maybe the whole environment needed it to stay humble”.<\/p>\n
Thursday was supposed to be Palace’s big night as Selhurst Park hosted a match in Europe for the first time in its 101-year history.<\/p>\n
There was an extra buzz at Selhurst station and inside the ground a sell-out crowd was chanting Glasner’s name and singing songs about last season’s FA Cup win.<\/p>\n
Right before kick-off a stunning Dad’s Army-inspired tifo plotting out Palace’s path from south London to May’s Conference League final in Leipzig was unfurled, with a banner underneath saying “we are the boys who will win your little game”.<\/p>\n
The stadium has become a fortress for Palace, who went into the game against the Cypriots unbeaten at home since February in all competitions.<\/p>\n
But the Eagles’ play never reflected the hype. Yes they created plenty of chances, 15 in total, but just one was on target.<\/p>\n
Jean-Philippe Mateta hit the crossbar with a hooked volley from close range in the first half and substitute Eddie Nketiah should have levelled in a late rally from the hosts, but completely missed a loose ball from five yards out.<\/p>\n
Does Glasner have a point?<\/p>\n
“You are always told when you play in the Premier League you win the Conference League,” said the Palace boss. <\/p>\n
“Stay humble. I don’t know if any debutant [is able] to win the competition. I don’t think so. <\/p>\n
“We will learn from it, the players will learn. It’s disappointing, a frustrating night, but maybe the whole environment needed it to stay humble.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Crystal Palace’s first home game in a major European competition didn’t go to plan as they were beaten…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221793,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-221792","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221792\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}