Sage reacts to Newcastle defeat
Pierre Sage says a 15-minute spell after half-time was costly for Crystal Palace against Newcastle United.
The Manager told Palace TV: “I think we missed 15 minutes in this game: the first 15 minutes in the second-half.
“We left a lot of things in the dressing room and didn’t come back on the pitch with that, and when you give space, when you give all the aggression to the opponent, at the end you pay for that, and that was the case today.
“I think it’s only mental because after the second goal conceded we started to play again and we pushed to come back without success.
“But during this first 15 minutes there was nothing in our play, nothing in our body language, things like this. We were not on the pitch, not on the play, and we paid for that.”
With a midweek Carabao Cup tie away at Fulham next up, Sage added: “First of all, we have to do – and we saw that today – the perfect game, without lack of motivation, without lack of concentration, without lack of aggression.
“I think we did that better in Beșiktaş. We made a mistake on the first goal and a little lack of aggression on the second goal [in Turkey], but in the duration we were more in the play, more in the game.
“Today we have too many things we did badly during these 15 minutes to expect something else.”