David Moyes admitted he expected the penalty awarded to his team in the second half to be overturned.
Michail Antonio was awarded a spot kick ten minutes from time after going down in the penalty box - only to see Paul Tierney withdraw his initial decision upon a pitchside monitor inspection.And the boss revealed how he wasn't surprised at the final decision having consulted with his team during the VAR check.
"My staff said to me that it was very soft, they’d be surprised if it was going to be given," he said. "The minute he [Tierney] went to the monitor, that’s where we thought it would probably be chalked off."
Meanwhile the boss appeared to take a swipe at supporters who greeted his decision to replace goalscorer Said Benrahma with a chorus of boos. "There’s a lot of experts out there isn’t there?," said Moyes when asked for his thoughts on the reception his change received.
"You have to make the decisions you think gets you the best chance [of winning] and today, you can decide what they were or how they were. I felt we probably improved in the last 20 minutes of the game with the ball and gave ourselves one or two opportunities.
"I think if you are watching the game from there [after the substitutions], I actually think we get better. I thought our football was better and we controlled a bit more of the game. I thought we looked more likely to score in that period of the game as well.
"You wouldn’t see it, Said [Benrahma] was badly strapped up on his knee and was touch and go for the game. It was about 60 minutes in and I didn’t think he was moving as freely as he could do.
"Overall, we made the choice and we were unlucky that we lost a goal in the last seconds."
Yet even though he was happy to defend his changes, Moyes agreed that his team didn't deserve to take all three points. "It was gutting, but we didn’t deserve to win," he confessed. There was always a chance we could lose it and that’s what happened in the end.
"I was really disappointed with how we played in the first half. We went a goal ahead - which was probably against the run of play - and then we gave away a terrible goal. It could have made a big difference going in 1-0 at half time even though we hadn’t played well.
"For all of the things where Crystal Palace played well today, I thought our bad play got them the first and the second goals. They counter attacked very quickly, made the right choice and the boy had a good finish, though it took a bit of a deflection to be fair. That was just the way it was."
Attention now turns to next week's Premier League clash with a rapidly-improving Leicester, which follows the midweek Carabao Cup tie against Blackburn Rovers. And Moyes is under no illusion his team have to improve their form - and rapidly.
"We are doing okay," he maintained. "We could do better, but we are doing okay. Hopefully we can take that into next week’s game and be in the same sort of positive frame of mind - but we are going to have to play much better."
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