Roy Hodgson hails ‘excellent’ Crystal Palace after EFL Cup rout of West Brom

Two goals from Andros Townsend and a Patrick van Aanholt strike secured a convincing win

Crystal Palace manager Roy Hodgson hailed an “excellent” performance following his side's 3-0 EFL Cup third-round win over West Brom at The Hawthorns.

Palace secured their place in the fourth round thanks to a double from Andros Townsend either side of a strike from Patrick van Aanholt.

Townsend opened the scoring in stunning style from 30 yards after only six minutes, and Van Aanholt doubled their advantage in the 76th minute before the former Tottenham winger sealed the win nine minutes from time with another classy finish.

“I must say that I thought it was a really good team performance,” said Hodgson, who made eight changes to his side. “I thought that we were excellent in every aspect to the game. It is not often that you can say that as a coach.

“I would find it hard to find any fault in our performance. I thought our defending was excellent and our attacking play was sometimes of a really, really good class. It got us three goals but it could so easily have got us more.

“It is good to win games and it is good to win them away from home. Everything about the performance was just what I wanted. Our message to the players was very simple that this was a great opportunity for the players to stake a claim and for us to advance in the competition.

Palace have made a positive start to the new season under Hodgson (Getty)

“It would be dishonest of me to say that we see the competition as a priority but we see it as a competition we will take very seriously.”

West Brom manager Darren Moore felt that the final scoreline was somewhat harsh on his side, despite making 10 changes to the team that beat Millwall last weekend.

“It was a mixed game really,” he said. “There were some good parts and some not so good parts. The first goal was a wonder strike and that meant us chasing the game. There were some good bits until they scored their second goal and then it became a bit stretched really.

“Probably in the final third I thought we could be more cutting and more threatening when our final pass, our final detail, let us down.”

Moore insisted that he did not regret making so many changes, adding: “We have a squad here and they had done well in previous rounds.

“For large parts of the game we were still in the game. It was only in the last 10 or 15 minutes when they got the couple goals and it definitely looked like it was out of reach.”