Palace must battle to stay up – Townsend

Andros Townsend says Crystal Palace must maintain the spirit they showed in Saturday’s vital win at Huddersfield in order to stay up.

Eagles winger Townsend has past experiences of relegation battles, having been at Newcastle and on loan at QPR when they went down.

And he believes Palace will need to show more than their ability if they are to stay in the Premier League.

“In a relegation battle you need more than talent. You need heart and desire,” Townsend told reporters.

“You need everything we showed out there and we’re going to need that same attitude in the last seven games if we’re going to survive.

“I’ve been in teams before when people said we were too good to go down, we know that’s never the case.”

Saturday’s victory left Palace two places and two points above the relegation zone and moved them to within a point of Huddersfield, who are in the place above them.

It also underlined the importance of Wilfried Zaha, who was outstanding.

Townsend said: “The stats when he’s not in the team – I don’t need to harp on about it, but he’s an incredible player for us.

“We need to keep him fit if we’re going to survive and get more performances from him like he did today and drag us to more victories.”