Crystal Palace boss Oliver Glasner has warned Romain Esse he will only be given more opportunities to play if he starts delivering on the pitch.
Debutant keeper Walter Benitez emerged as the hero at Selhurst Park after making two saves in a 4-2 penalty shoot-out victory over south London rivals Millwall once normal time had finished deadlocked at 1-1.
However, the spotlight fell on Esse after the 20-year-old forward, playing against his former club, continued to disappoint in only his second appearance of the season and was taken off at the interval.
“I don’t want to talk about a single player, but if you sub someone at half-time you are not pleased with his performance,” Glasner said.
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“It’s simple, football is not so difficult. When you get a chance, you have to perform and show you can help the team win the game.
“If I have a feeling a player can help the team win a game, he gets many minutes. If I get the feeling a player doesn’t help a team win the game, he doesn’t get many minutes.”
When asked if Esse will get more minutes over the coming weeks, Glasner replied: “It’s up to him. As always, it’s up to the player.
“He’s a nice guy, I like him as a person. But I’m not being paid to be a nice person, I’m being paid to win games. It’s up to the player to improve.
“I don’t want to talk about Romain the whole time, it’s not fair. I will talk to him in person. It’s up to him, so let’s see.”
Glasner’s frustration was not confined to Esse alone as Palace extended their unbeaten run to 16 games.
“I haven’t seen the stats but our front three (Jean-Philippe Mateta, Esse and Yeremy Pino) lost 80 per cent of the duels, especially in the first half,” he said.
“We lost so many balls and we lost so many duels. We were too long on the ball and we took a few wrong decisions. We missed a few chances. And so the game was how it was.”
Defender Chris Richards struck for Palace in the 72nd minute but Ryan Leonard equalised in stoppage time.
Millwall manager Alex Neil said: “I was proud with the performance in general. We were very good and after a passive start we grew more and more in confidence.
“We made eight changes and lost a goalkeeper in the warm-up (Max Crocombe) and lost Dan Kelly 20 minutes into the game, so to put that level of performance in was terrific.
“The frustrating thing for us is that we didn’t manage to go through. It was a really strong Palace team and on the balance of the game I was really pleased.
“We keep going, we don’t give in and we deserved the goal to take it to penalties.”