Crystal Palace resoundingly beat Fulham 3-0 to book their place in the semi-finals of the FA Cup but boss Oliver Glasner was keen to quash any trophy talk.
Palace comfortably saw off their hosts thanks to goals from Eberechi Eze, Ismaila Sarr and Eddie Nketiah at Craven Cottage.
And speaking after the game, Glasner backed his side to have a strong end to the season after a difficult start to the campaign: “The season is not over,” he said. “If this is the end today, I wouldn’t be happy. It is just the start of our crunch time of the last two months now.
“Hopefully, we have 12 more games to play. The good thing is we are in good momentum and the players are in good shape. The next two months we always stay together, we can train a lot and we have many games to get into our best shape again.
“I think today, especially at the beginning, we were far away from this. We need to perform at our best to win as many games as possible.
“I don’t want to talk about winning a trophy because even in the next game we can’t win a trophy. It is just the semi-finals. When you enter a cup competition it doesn’t matter if you lose in round number one or the semi-finals. We entered the competition to win it.”
Palace are looking to end the pain of 164 years without a trophy but Fulham will not be able to end their wait for silverware this season after being knocked out of the competition.
Marco Silva was left frustrated after Adam Wharton perhaps should have received a second yellow card midway through the first half for lashing out at Rodrigo Muniz. If he was sent off, the game could have been very different.
Silva said: “For me it is clear, it’s a second yellow card but we are used to these kind of situations. I prefer to say we are unlucky but it has been a long story with us. Of course VAR cannot overturn this decision but you have many eyes inside the pitch, the linesman has all the angles to see it, the fourth official.
“It is a clear second yellow card, definitely. It would have a massive impact on the game but against us it is always more difficult to see. We have been unlucky in these type of situations and let’s hope it will be balanced at the end of the season.”