Crystal Palace defender Maxence Lacroix has promised that his side will not be so wasteful in front of goal in the latter stages of the competition. Palace had to do it the hard way against AEK Larnaca, relying on an Ismaila Sarr goal in extra time to send through to the quarter-finals.
Maxence Lacroix vowed that Crystal Palace will take their chances against Fiorentina in the Conference League quarter-final.
Palace sneaked past Cypriot side AEK Larnaca by virtue of an Ismaila Sarr goal in extra time, his second of the night, as the Eagles were made to work for their passage to the last eight.
Sarr’s 14th goal of the season came after 13 minutes, as Palace finally found the back of the net against the Cypriot side, after 193 minutes against them this season.
It appeared from there that Palace would finally make their quality tell but it was not to be, with Larnaca hitting back in the 63rd minute through Enric Saborit.
The goalscorer turned quickly into the villain when being sent off 10 minutes later but despite having the extra man, Palace could not find a way past 10-man Larnaca in the remaining 17 minutes of normal time and had to do it the hard way.
In front of 7,019 spectators at the AEK arena, Sarr bagged his second of the night from a Daichi Kamada cross to finally give the Eagles the advantage.
And the drama was not done there, as Petros Ioannou was sent off for a poor tackle on Jean-Phillipe Mateta four minutes into extra time stoppage time.
In the end though, Palace found a way to win, which as Lacroix said, was the most important thing.
He said: “A long day, but a really important win. I think we deserved it.
“You can see with the statistics that we shoot a lot, but they played really well, to be honest.
“Until the very end, we kept on going, so it's perfect.
“This is the thing that we’ve learned a lot: to be patient, to wait for the good passes, the good runs and the good moments in front of goal.
“We stayed calm, and even when they scored the goal, we stuck to the principles, we did well.
“The most important thing is to win. When you come here in this type of game, it's always difficult, and we did the job, so this is the most important thing.”
Palace dominated possession, with 70% of the ball and amassed a mammoth 29 shots.
Only seven of those were on target, however and Palace were unable to pull away and dominate the game as they should have done.
That is something that Lacroix promises will not happen against Fiorentina in the quarter-finals, with the Frenchman insisting Palace will take their chances.
“They did very well defensively. It was not easy, but in the end, we scored two beautiful goals,” he added.
“We could’ve scored three or four, but we didn't take the chances – we’ll take them against Fiorentina.
“It’s beautiful for him [Ismaila Sarr], he's really a key player for us and we are really happy to help him also to score.
“I would tell him that he needs to score the third one!
“He didn’t want to give us any rest - but yes, it's really good for him and for us.”