We just haven't got the right mentality at the moment

Last updated : 06 October 2012 By Tony Scholes

It's three wins in eight days for Palace, with today's win following on from victories at Bolton and Wolves. He saw his side get back into the game today courtesy of two Wilfried Zaha goals and he enthused: "Wilfried Zaha has decided this year that he is going to commit himself to football and I think that he understands you have to do that it you want to play football at the very highest level, he is certainly a young man who has got huge potential and hopefully he can fulfil that.

"I think this is the place to fulfil it because he is expressing his talent week in, week out in front of a very good crowd. The young man will mature under that and his game understanding will get better.

"I have seen him play better than today but I have very high standards with Wilfried, as I have with a lot of players."

Speaking about the performance, he added: "Overall I am very, very happy because it has been a tremendous week's work. There was a great physical effort put into the three games that we won and they were three different games we've had to play.

"Today was always going to be difficult for us. They were not going to come here and lie down. I felt they scored two goals against the run of play that put us on the back foot, but I felt the response from the lads, the spirit we've got in the dressing room and that little bit of quality up top won us the game."

Clarets' boss Howe slammed his side team's defending after today's game took it to 22 goals conceded in 10 league games. “To concede four goals away from home is nowhere near good enough and the number we are shipping in at the moment is a real concern," he said.

“The statistics are there for everyone to see. We score a lot of goals, but we are conceding too many so we have to address that problem quickly. That means hard work on the training ground and maybe for me to look into the loan market.

"There is only so long you can go on conceding the goals we are, so things have to change. So we will go away and think about it and work with the players and we expect a response.

“Individually they are all good players, but defensively individually and collectively we haven’t done well enough and I have to take responsibility for that as leader of the team.”

He explained: “We changed system today to try and be tighter. We knew they had pace in their side and prepared for that. In the first half we did really well, but at 2-0 up we got hit on the counter attack twice, which was really disappointing with the system we lined up with and from then on the defending was really poor.

“We are hugely disappointed to lose the game after scoring three goals away from home. If you do that you expect to get three points. Defensively though we are switching off and losing concentration and we just haven’t got the right mentality at the moment.”