Spurs 2-0 Palace - Tim's verdict

Tim Sherwood was pleased with the team's turn around in form in the second half as we toppled Crystal Palace 2-0 at the Lane on Saturday.

Goals from Christian Eriksen at the start of the second half and Jermain Defoe on 73 minutes secured maximum points after Palace had impressed in the opening period.

The Eagles showed real attacking intent in that first half and squandered the best chance to take the lead when Jason Puncheon blazed wide from the penalty spot in the eighth minute.

Quick on the break, Palace also got back to defend in numbers and we struggled to carve them open. We came closest just before half-time when Nabil Bentaleb’s fine strike from 30 yards hit the inside of  post, ran along the line and to safety.

The second half was a different story though. Christian had already gone close when he latched onto Emmanuel Adebayor’s flick before firing into the top corner for 1-0 in the 50th minute.

Jermain then doubled the lead, latching onto Aaron Lennon’s pass before finding the top corner, and that proved enough.

"What pleased me the most was that we were disappointing in the first half, but we were able to turn that around into a positive performance in the second half," said Tim.

"They came at us in the first half and caught us by surprise. They had attacking options, were powerful in the wide areas and delivered a lot of balls into our box.

"In all honesty, they were unlucky not to go ahead when they missed the penalty. We capitalised on that.

"We had a few words at half-time and the lads came back out and showed a lot of character.

"We dug in. You can’t win football matches without showing character and desire and they outshone us in that regard (in the first half) but once we came to terms with it and matched them up, showed some spirit, our quality shone through.

"Even though we didn’t play well in the first half, there was a belief that we would go on and win, that we’d be all right.

"We had to put the pieces together. Credit to the lads for doing that and we managed to get the points. It’s not always going to be pretty, sometimes we’re going to have to dig it out and we did that."