“I knew before the game that we had a short squad and because of that I had to rotate”. “They both looked risky so that will give everyone a confidence boost and it’s nice to have some competition for the weekend”. “It is a game I am looking forward to”. We have a lot of injuries and in our situation we had to use some young players.
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The Eagles dominated the first period but this didn’t translate into any efforts at goal, with Addicks keeper Nick Pope essentially a spectator for the opening 45 minutes.
Wilfried Zaha was the liveliest presence in the Palace attack, the winger heading Chung-Yong Lee’s cross just too high and fizzing Campbell’s lay-off across goal and wide.
Gayle stepped up and made no mistake from the spot to double the home side’s advantage just before the hour.
Wedged in between Gayle’s brace, Naby Sarr headed home from a corner, although Wayne Hennessey will feel he perhaps should have done better.
But their hopes of a comeback were well and truly dashed as Palace, and Gayle, scored their second penalty of the evening after the striker had been tripped in the box by Diarra.
The Eagles stretched their lead in the 74th minute with another spot kick as Diarra committed a professional foul on Gayle and was shown a red card before Gayle netted again.
Gayle completed his hat-trick when he glanced in Lee’s corner five minutes from time, and it could have been five in the final minute had sub Yohan Cabaye’s rocket not cannoned against the crossbar.
He explained: “In the first-half, there were a lot of positives, we organised ourselves and the young players performed well”. Dwight and Fraizer looked sharp all night.
Of course, I always want to play with my strongest team but thinking of Cardiff on Saturday, we could not take any risks with any more players.
“I’d be supporting Palace”, he added with a smile.
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“Whenever he has had a disappointment or a tough time he is strong enough to come back and he deals with it”. “We want to go as far as we can, we are in the last 16 and it’s been a while since we had a cup run”.
