Bilic: ‘It feels like a defeat’

“It feels like a defeat,” Slaven Bilic told post-match reporters.

“We were 2-0 up at half-time and we knew the game was not over. A lot of the guys who played today also played on Wednesday night and Palace put us under a lot of pressure. I’m very disappointed with the penalty, it came too early for us but to concede in this manner it makes it more difficult.

“We gave them the goal, it’s a well-taken goal from Zaha but with 5-10 seconds to go we were in a position just to keep the ball and we made the wrong decision instead of keeping it. Unfortunately, we opted for the wrong decision to cross the ball [by Michail Antonio]. They had another opportunity and they took it.”

“We didn’t want to be passive, they took more risks and got the penalty. They pulled one back very early and we wanted to exploit the space they were leaving us.We wanted to punish them and even made one offensive change with Antonio instead of Zabaleta. We had to defend like we did in the first-half but we had to use the space better.”