Lacroix: We showed we are together
Maxence Lacroix says Crystal Palace’s second-half performance against Chelsea was a show of togetherness.
The Eagles were up against it in the first-half of their first game of 2025, with the Blues admittedly dominant in the opening half-an-hour, taking the lead through talisman Cole Palmer.
But Palace fought their way back into the game and, roared on by the Selhurst Park crowd, particularly improved in the second-half, claiming a deserved draw in the end – and a first league season unbeaten against Chelsea since 1991/92 – following Jean-Philippe Mateta’s late equaliser.
“We are really happy because it’s always good to compete against this type of team,” Lacroix told Premier League Productions.
“We saw a good team of Crystal Palace today. We showed we could be dangerous against them. It’s always difficult to play against us here especially.
“I think it’s not only me, it’s all the team – we defended together. When we are together, it’s always better. We saw in the second-half they didn’t have a lot of chances – they shot one time on target – so for us, we did our job. It’s good for us.
“I think sometimes we respect this type of team – the big teams – too much. This is what we said after. We said: ‘come, we play, we have to win duels, we have to show we have the quality to beat them’ – and that’s what we did the second-half. We deserved it.”
Despite a testing run of fixtures, Palace have now lost just once in their last nine Premier League games, pulling away from the bottom three in the table.
“I think it [our form] is good because we work hard,” Lacroix said. “At first it was difficult when we started the season because everyone didn’t have all the stuff to be in this team, because we have a lot of change.
“It was a little bit difficult, but right now you can see we are together and we play well.”