Academy Let Two Goal Lead Slip

"We played such good football for the first half-hour. Crystal Palace were under such pressure, they didn’t touch the ball.

"Miroslav Stoch scored the second after 15 minutes" It was the Miroslav's sixth goal of the season.

"Simmonds intercepted a pass, passed forward to Morten Nielsen, Miroslav made a run, Morten dribbled the centre-half and passed it at the right time and Miroslav hit it to the corner. It was all so easy," continued Kaiser.

At this point Kaiser believes the boys lulled themselves into a false sense of security. He said "We had a few chances for 3-0, then after half-an-hour we just stopped. It had felt so easy, but now players were slower. Then six minutes before half-time Crystal Palace make a long throw, Harry Worley heads away, there’s no pressure on the ball and the striker volleys in. Two-one!

"You think after a quarter-of-an-hour it will be 7-0 or 8-0 for Chelsea, and at half-time it is 2-1. We had gone from all the players giving 100 per cent to some players giving 75 per cent. We had a game again."

Kaiser went on to say that the Academy could have been 3-1 after ten minutes of the second-half, but a terrible misunderstanding between Ferreira and Nana saw Palace equalise. He said "In the first ten minutes Miroslav Stoch made many runs, got crosses in and we missed the chances for 3-1. The two attackers of Crystal Palace, meanwhile, were good players. We hadn’t seen them in the first half-hour, but when you gave them a chance they took it.

"Their equaliser was a terrible goal for us, a big misunderstanding between Fabio Ferreira and Nana Ofori — Fabio passed back, Nana was running forward — and they were left with a man alone and it was 2-2.

"Now Crystal Palace were winning the battle. Still too many of our players were at 75 per cent. We went 3-2 down from a short corner, no-one from us stepped out. Again it was bad defending, but again their forwards had terrific movement and scored a good goal."

With Miroslav in outstanding form, he was instrumental in setting up the Academy's equaliser which Shaun Cummings scored. But the boys hadn't learned and Palace went onto score a fourth and ultimately the winner.

Although the Academy dropped their first points of the season, Ruud had this to say, "If you’d said at the beginning of the season, will you take 10 games, nine wins and a defeat, everybody would say thank you very much. Some day always we would have not to win. But this day we didn’t have to lose.

"Now the boys must think that you have not yet won the game when you are two goals ahead — just as you have not lost the game when you are two goals down, and they will have to face that situation one day."

Football Icon winner Sam Hurrell played the whole ninety-minutes and now has five appearances plus 2 substitute appearances to his name this season. Take note Football Icon 2 competitors.

Academy:

Russell; Ofori-Twumasi, Worley, Cork, Hurrell; Bridcutt (c), Simmonds (Sawyer 74); Fernandes; F Ferreira (Saarelma 79), Nielsen (Cummings h-t), Stoch.