Pierre Sage praised Crystal Palace’s recovery after they made a slow start to their 3-0 Carabao Cup victory over Middlesbrough at Selhurst Park.
Two goals from Jorgen Strand Larsen and an audacious third by Daichi Kamada secured passage into the fourth round but Championship side Boro were in control for long spells of a lively tie.
Sage said: “We didn’t play well at the beginning of the game and we started to play when we scored the first goal. It was a good collective action.
“We controlled the ball at this moment. At the end, we scored. It’s a good sign. During the first half, I was not very happy with our way of defending.
“We struggled when they played between our lines, but we corrected this kind of thing during half-time.
“It was better in the second half and we were able to score. We didn’t have possession, but they’re a good team. I want to congratulate them, they played well.”
Strand Larsen nodded home in each half to take the wind out of Boro’s sails and Sage revealed the Norwegian is in contention with his rival for striking duties, Eddie Nketiah, to start Saturday’s Premier League clash with Ipswich.
Sage said: “It’s always a good problem when a player performs like this. It’s a good thing for the others because they don’t have to give up and they have to give their best too.
“I have to manage his freshness because he played 45 minutes against Fulham, 65 minutes now and we play on Saturday.
“He will be able to start, but we will see what happens because Eddie Nketiah will be able to train maybe tomorrow (Wednesday) or the day after.”
Middlesbrough boss Kim Hellberg admitted his side lacked the killer instinct to reward their control of the game for the first hour.
Hellberg said: “It’s always tough when you lose a game 3-0 when it’s about scoring goals.
“But if you look at the performance, that was quite an impressive 60 minutes away from home against a Premier League side.
“We got into a lot of good positions on the pitch, more than them, but their quality around those areas and what they did there was nice.
“There are very few teams that go to the Premier League sides and take control of the game, which I think we did.
“We tried to play our best football and we did that very well. We were very good in long spells and matched the Premier League side with intensity and how we pressed, bravery on the ball and played through them a lot of times.
“But in those moments, we weren’t good enough to create more out of it, even if we had some good chances to score.”
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