Crystal Palace youngster Nathaniel Clyne has not given up hope of reaching the FA Cup quarter final and a date with the winners of the Reading v West Bromwich Albion tie despite being held by Premier League big guns Aston Villa, at Selhurst Park on Sunday.
Stiliyan Petrov’s 87th minute equaliser, which denied Palace a famous victory, means the Eagles will now have to travel to Villa Park next week for the replay.
The Eagles had put in an excellent shift to twice take the lead through goals by Johnny Ertl and Darren Ambrose but were pegged back first by James Collins and then eventually by Petrov as Palace were looking good value for a place in the next round.
Despite the late set-back Palace’s Academy graduate, Clyne, believes that the a number of positives have emerged from the tie. Speaking to LFE Online, he said:
“We produced a really good team display against a top Premier League side. Martin O’Neill named pretty much a full strength team, so to more than match them for long periods is particularly pleasing.”
“The replay itself will bring some revenue in to the Club so from that perspective there is a silver lining to Sunday but as a player that’s not something you tend to think about until after the event.”
“On another day you never know, we might have held out. It’s obviously a disappointment that we couldn’t whatever the circumstances were around their second goal but now we’ve just got to go to Villa Park and put in a good performance.”
“We’ll go there with the intention of giving a good account of ourselves and hope that on the night it will be enough to see us through.”
