BY AYODELE ODUMADE AT SELHURST PARK

Crystal Palace 0 Tottenham Hotspur 1.

Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino was delighted they beat Crystal Palace to move into Fourth Place after they totally dominated a depleted Palace side missing 12 players due to injury.  He said:  “When you are involved in the game always you are thinking next time. We won the game and we deserved it because we fully dominated.  The performance was good. It was difficult to play here.”

Harry Kane scored the only goal in the 88^th minute despite having an off day. His manager said: “Harry (Kane) missed the first few chances. But his character made him to keep going. We are more mature and never give up the belief that we can change the game.  Top players like Harry can miss chances but what makes them top is the moment they miss a chance is they forget and make another. You can call that confident trust in yourself.”

Pochettino also had some words of praise for young Davinson Sanchez whose performance belied the fact that he young and new to the Premier League. “Eric Dyer and Davinson Sanchez were good today and they had very good communication. Davinson Sanchez has surprised everyone at just 21.”

Palace appeared to have held on to a point until Kane’s late goal from a header from a corner.  The Palace manager Roy Hodgson said: “Tomkins went down with cramp we knew he could not run. I am a bit disappointed.  Tomkins who was marking Harry Kane had gone off the field. It is so disappointing. Had he drawn the game we would have been pleased.”  Despite the disappointment though Hodgson still found words of praise for Aaron- Wan Bisaka who was deployed as a right back due to the injuries Palace had.

 “ He was not a surprise. If we did not think he was capable we would not have put him in there. He trained with the first team for a period of time but he has not had opportunities. To get your opportunity against a team like Spurs with the players around you, I thought he handled it extremely well.   

One of our problems was the youth and lack of experience on the occasions we won the ball back we tended to present it to them again. But I did expect that.”

It does not get any easier for Palace who will be without Tim Fosu-Mensah next Monday against his parent club Manchester United and Hodgson said: We knew that was the situation when we signed him on loan. We knew he would only be able to play 36 games for us.”