The Eagles picked up a fifth win in their last six Premier League matches on the road courtesy of Jean-Philippe Mateta’s second-half brace – and have now enjoyed four away clean sheets in a row as part of a club-record eight-game unbeaten streak.
Richards beamed: “If I’m self-critical I remember a few [mistakes], but it felt like we had a pretty solid game, and I think it's probably our best game collectively this season!
“United are always going to be a quality team, so there was a bit of back and forth throughout the game, especially the first few minutes in the second-half, but we just kept patient and we knew that we would get our chances and hopefully score from them.
“It's always good to get a win, especially in an away fixture, so we're very happy all around today.”
Palace’s away form continues to impress, with Richards laughing: “I'm not quite sure [why our away form is so good], but hopefully we can bring this momentum into Selhurst Park and hopefully get a few more wins at home as well.
“We’re just sticking together. We knew this season, especially at the beginning, we started pretty low down, but we knew that we could only go forward from there, so I think we just kind of got it together mentally and physically, and we figured that if we kept pushing and hopefully get some of the momentum that we had at the end of last season, that eventually the results would start coming.
“That's pretty much all we've done: just work hard.”