The captain was talking after Palace’s 1-0 win, secured by a dominant first-half display that ended with Odsonne Edouard taking the lead.
He said: “We spoke at half-time, we really wanted to push forward and try to go for the second goal and I think we had opportunities in the second-half. But this is the Premier League, every team is a quality team with quality players.
“They put us under pressure. What is very important for us as a group is when we needed to stick together and defend as a group we did it. I think that’s why we definitely deserved those points today.
“The performance was great in the second-half when we needed to defend, compete and fight... We did it in the first-half, when we needed to create we created a lot of chances in the first-half, we just needed that final pass, final decision from our attacking players. But overall I think it was a great performance from the team.”