Kevin Danso on the ‘character and togetherness’ that can take us places after Palace win

It was pointed out to Kevin Danso that it was like two heavyweight boxers going into battle – and the big defender took the points victory, a clean sheet and the Player of the Match award after going 90 minutes with Palace striker Jean-Phillippe Mateta at Selhurst Park.

Seven goals in his 18 starts in the Premier League, Mateta is the focal point for much of Palace’s attacks, a key behind their recent unbeaten run of 17 matches between April-October.

Kevin, lining-up alongside Micky van de Ven in Cuti Romero’s (suspended) absence, said he relished the challenge and Mateta was largely kept at bay – Palace’s best chances falling to Maxence Lacroix and Justin Devenny, who failed to seriously test Guglielmo Vicario. Indeed, Palace were restricted to two efforts on goal as Archie Gray’s close-range header secured the points and a fifth away win in nine.

Speaking to us afterwards, Kevin said: “Games like this are always tough. I relish games like that, opponents like that - it's proved over the last few years how much of a good striker he (Mateta) is. I’m just happy it went our way today, we kept the clean sheet and managed to stop him from scoring.

“It’s always the goal for us defenders to keep the ball as far away as possible from our goal and try and keep the clean sheet, and we did that today.

“I think it’s given us a lot of confidence the way we’ve performed in some of the games over the past few weeks. The results are not always going our way, but I think we showed the character and the togetherness we have. Sometimes we have to grind out results like we did today and I feel once we hit that step and we learn to do that consistently, we'll be a real tough force.”