Oliver Glasner criticised his Crystal Palace players for showing Arsenal “too much respect” and said the level of the Eagles’ performance made it “impossible” for them to win.
Palace were targeting a place in the Carabao Cup semi-finals for the first time since 2012 but fell just short as they lost 3-2 at the Emirates.
The Eagles took the lead through Jean-Philippe Mateta in the fourth minute and scored the final goal of the game through ex-Arsenal striker Eddie Nketiah, but Gabriel Jesus scored a hat-trick for the Gunners in the middle of those Palace strikes to condemn the Eagles to defeat.
“It was a perfect start,” Glasner said about Mateta’s early strike. “But we needed a performance on our top level. We have to be honest: it was not a performance on our top level.
“In the first half we played with too much respect [for Arsenal]. We lost the ball too easily, played too slow, didn’t demand the ball.
“It’s not so easy to score here. That’s a little frustrating, because when you score two at the Emirates, it should have been at least a penalty shootout.”
The second of Jesus’s two goals appeared to be offside, but VAR only comes into play in the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup, and so there was no opportunity to check whether it was right that the goal should stand.
“I think it was offside,” said Glasner. “But there is no VAR, everyone knows this.
“They had too many chances in the second half, we gave them too many chances. Then it’s just a question of time when they will score. We made too many mistakes. We were a bit too cautious.”
