New Crystal Palace boss OIiver Glasner demanded his side stay “humble” after moving eight points clear of the relegation zone with a 3-0 home victory over 10-man Burnley in his first match in charge.
The Austrian, who only led his first training session on Wednesday, had declared himself “no magician” and warned there would not be too many changes implemented ahead of the Clarets’ trip to Selhurst Park.
Still, there seemed to be a clear brightening of spirits both in the stands and on the pitch after goals from Chris Richards, Jordan Ayew and a Jean-Philippe Mateta’s spot-kick lifted Palace to victory in front of an elated crowd, whose support moved the first-time Premier League manager.
Glasner said: “The players from the beginning, the players who came into the game, and also the bench, you can feel this. There was a good spirit. You are more often than me at Selhurst, but for me it was ‘wow.’
“Before the game in the locker room, what kind of spirit the players showed, what kind of power they showed, and for me it was ‘wow’ again when I entered the stadium before the game.
“In such an environment you’re able to show your best performance. I don’t think it was our best performance, but it was OK for the start.
“We know this is something we can build up our ideas, we can work the next weeks, and it’s also important to stay humble now. We know it was a very good performance, but they could also see many things we could improve and we will continue working on it.”
Burnley set themselves an unwelcome and ultimately insurmountable challenge after goalkeeper James Trafford’s weak back pass was intercepted by Jefferson Lerma and Josh Brownhill’s reacted by bringing the midfielder down to earn his 35th-minute sending-off.
Glasner might have been disappointed that it took until the 68th minute for Palace to break the deadlock via Richards’ header, the American defender’s first Premier League goal, four minutes before Ayew netted the hosts’ second.
Less than 10 minutes after providing Ayew and picking up his first Palace assist, substitute Matheus Franca was brought down by Vitinho and Mateta made it three goals to the good for the Eagles in the 72nd minute.
Burnley thought they had clawed one back in the 88th minute, but David Datro Fofana’s header was chalked off after a VAR check determined Lorenz Assignon had been offside in the build-up, potentially even interfering with Palace keeper Sam Johnstone.
The result was a bitter blow for Burnley, who remain eight points adrift of safety.
Vincent Kompany conceded it was always going to be a tough ask for his side after a red card he demurred to evaluate, but he was more clear about how deeply-felt the loss had been.
He said: “It’s difficult to play in a game of this magnitude, and it’s really not something we could afford today, and it happened, and then after that it’s difficult to summarise what we’ve seen today.
“It’s one of them where you’ve got to pick yourself up again, because this one hurts, but the overall riding disappointment is on the fact that we had such a key event in a game where we couldn’t afford it.”