Crystal Palace knocked Tottenham out of the FA Cup on Sunday, with a 2-0 victory at Selhurst Park.
Connor Wickham got the first in just the ninth minute before former Spurs player Andros Townsend finished the game off with a penalty in the 34th minute.
Talking on BT Sport (Sunday, 4pm) after the game Townsend said that his goal was much easier because he knew which way goalkeeper Paulo Gazzaniga would go.
“Yeah, well I’ve taken a few penalties for Tottenham so I knew they’d tell the goalie to go that way, so I just slotted the ball in the other side,” Townsend said.
“So inside knowledge really helped you?” the BT Sport host asked.
“Yeah, I’ve played with some of the boys and I knew they’d say to the goalie to go a particular way, so I just put it in the other side.”
OPINION
Townsend didn’t celebrate his goal through respect to his former club but it sounds like he knew exactly which way Gazzaniga would go. To be fair, penalties are always a 50/50 for the goalie and given the knowledge about Townsend he could always have decided that Townsend would switch it up. It capped the end of a very poor week for Spurs though, with Kieran Trippier missing his own penalty to get Tottenham back in the game. It means that they’ve been knocked out of both domestic cups within the space of a few days, and losing Harry Kane, Dele Alli and Son Heung-min for both of them proved a step too much for Spurs. They’ll look to get their season back on track against Watford at Wembley on Wednesday, when they should have Son back to help out. He’s returned from the Asian Cup and if he can get some rest and recover from the jetlag, he could be fit to start on Wednesday.