Oliver Glasner said nine-man Crystal Palace’s victory was a priceless achievement after they clung on to a 2-1 lead to secure their first league double over arch-rivals Brighton in 92 years.
Daniel Munoz’s deflected strike 10 minutes into the second half ultimately made the difference at Selhurst Park, but the Eagles needed everything in the tank to survive 12 minutes of added time following the dismissals of Eddie Nketiah and captain Marc Guehi.
Danny Welbeck had cancelled out Jean-Philippe Mateta’s third-minute opener just after the half hour, and it briefly became nine versus 10 when Jan Paul van Hecke was also sent off with a second booking in the sixth minute of second-half added time.
“With the dramatic situations, with the circumstances today, it’s a massive win,” said Palace boss Glasner.
“But I’m really exhausted, because so much was going on, the atmosphere at the end in the stadium, the fighting spirit of the team and the togetherness of our fans, it’s just great to experience.
“I’ve talked about it very often. These moments you can’t buy, you have to experience, and that’s great to get this experience and be part of it. (But I’ll be) really happy to lay on my sofa and just do nothing today.”
Palace’s last league double over Brighton was in 1932-33, when they were in the Third Division, and until this encounter had never done it in the Premier League.
The victory also snapped a streak of five successive 1-1 Premier League draws between the sides at Selhurst Park.
It concludes an eventful week for the Eagles, who last Saturday booked their place in the FA Cup semi-finals with a 3-0 victory at Fulham, then rescued a midweek draw at Southampton.
The Austrian boss could even be seen encouraging fans to get behind his side after they were forced to dig deep.
He said: “I could see how the players were fighting together, and I felt that they needed all the support we can give. It was a fantastic atmosphere.
“Also, I think I needed something to do with my arms, because I couldn’t keep them in my pockets.”
Brighton boss Fabian Hurzeler was forced to reflect on another frustrating result, one week after they were knocked out of their own FA Cup last-eight encounter by Nottingham Forest in a penalty shootout, then were beaten 3-0 by Aston Villa.
Hurzeler agreed his youthful squad needed to be in better control of their emotions, saying: “It was important for the players to keep calm and find the right solutions. We have to analyse why that was, be honest with each other and then make it better.
“They went down to nine men and then we made a silly mistake to concede a red card ourselves. It’s difficult to win Premier League games when you’re not on the highest level, we had the same situation against Aston Villa on Wednesday.
“We have had too many individual mistakes this week, and if you do that you can’t win many Premier League games. We have a lot of young players and in some moments we perhaps weren’t mature enough. But we will analyse it and I’m sure we will show a good reaction.”
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