Guessand explains debut-day impact at Brighton
Evann Guessand says starting the game on the bench helped him to make his impressive debut-day impact away at Brighton & Hove Albion, where he set up Ismaïla Sarr’s second-half winner.
The Ivory Coast international, who joined Palace on loan from Aston Villa last week, began Sunday’s contest at the Amex Stadium on the bench – but, having emerged from it on 56 minutes, took scarcely five minutes to make his mark.
Seizing on a loose header near the halfway line, Guessand picked the ball up and drove towards the Brighton defence, before slipping the ball through perfectly for Sarr, who duly dispatched it with aplomb.
“When the players fight for maybe 60 minutes or even more, they are more tired, and me, on the bench, [had] more fresh legs,” Guessand reasoned, speaking to Palace TV.
“I think we saw this today because as you said, after I came onto the pitch, we scored.
“The bench sometimes is important to the team, and today we saw the result. Hopefully in the future we’re going to have more victories, because I think we deserved it.”
The game today was crazy!
—Evann Guessand
On the match as a whole – a tight game, settled in the end by that solitary Sarr strike – Guessand reflected: “It was crazy. The game today was crazy! The two teams fought like animals.
“We saw the fans really excited for this game, because we know it’s a rivalry. In the end, Palace won, because I think we deserved this victory.
“It was a long time we haven’t won a game in the league and with the quality we have in the team, I think we deserve more. If we keep in this way, with the players we have, we can have more victories.”
The 24-year-old – along with fellow debutant Jørgen Strand Larsen – celebrated with a series of Maxence Lacroix-style fist pumps in front of the travelling supporters, and revealed: “He [Lacroix] told me before the game ‘if we win, I’m going to bring you to the fans to do the celebration!’
“It was really fun. They taught me how to do it and then I know for the future.
“The more we do it, the more it’s good!”