Crystal Palace defender Chris Richards has revealed that the Eagles players worked hard together to stop Chelsea’s dangerous attack during the goalless draw at Stamford Bridge, Softfootball reports.
The American star has enjoyed success recently with the Eagles as they beat Manchester City to win the FA Cup at the end of last season and at the start of this season they beat Liverpool via penalties to win the Community Shield and for Chelsea, they been in fine form winning the FIFA Club World Cup and capping it up with a fine preseason.
Speaking to Crystal Palace official club media, Richards revealed that they have been following the progress of Chelsea since winning the UEFA Conference League at the end of last season. It was no surprise they held the Bluess to a goalless draw.
He revealed:
“We worked well together. We’ve seen Chelsea throughout the last season and in pre-season, also at the Club World Cup, they have a very dangerous attack.
“So we knew that if we could alleviate those scoring goals, we would have a good chance. You know a draw is still a good point regardless.
“It’s a good way to start the season and I think we can move forward with this performance in the second half.
“One thing we talked about before the game was embracing the toughness that Chelsea are going to bring. It wasn’t going to perfect, but as long as we could keep a clean sheet, that’s number one for us.”
Chris Richards went on to speak about Eberechi Eze’s disallowed freekick goal against the Blues at Stamford Bridge. He said:
“We’re pretty disappointed. I think everybody in the stadium thought it was a goal and somehow VAR saw something else, you know you live and die by VAR these days.
“But regardless, it was it was a good free-kick and hopefully we get a few more of those.”
Crystal Palace will play their first match at home in the new premier league season when they host Nottingham Forest at Selhurst Park this weekend.
