Crystal Palace winger Wilfried Zaha has revealed why he was forced to stall his celebrations after notching the opener in their 2-0 Premier League win against Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday.
The 28-year-old Ivory Coast player put the Eagles ahead in the 61st minute before Conor Gallagher’s 78th-minute strike earned them maximum points at Selhurst Park Stadium.
Zaha’s goal was scored after a sensational through-ball from James McArthur and after putting the ball past Wolves goalkeeper Jose Sa, he stopped his celebrations as VAR assessed an offside call.
“All I remember is Macca playing the ball through and I was thinking was: composure, finish it,” Zaha told the club’s official website after the game.
“Then I saw the lino put his flag up so I just thought: let me not celebrate. It was offside so I just waited and luckily enough it was a goal.
“To be honest I just thought: let me not celebrate like a mad man and then it’s offside. But it’s part of the game now.”
On the team’s performance in recent weeks, Zaha said: “We’re getting the points now. The performances are getting better and better and we’re getting strong and stronger and the main thing is we’re winning games; we worked hard and we’re finally getting the points from it.
“Obviously we were up against a strong defence, very rigid at the back and it’s hard to move them around. But we had to keep passing the ball around the take the chances we had.
“[Conor Gallagher’s goal] just cools down everything because if they score one goal they’re back in the game so the second goal just finished everything for us.”
Zaha also had a message to the fans: “It’s massive because it pushes you on throughout the game. Obviously, there are waves where the other team’s on top so having the fans cheer us on throughout the whole game is a massive push.”
The Ivory Coast winger has been instrumental for Palace this campaign and has so far scored four goals in the top-flight from 10 appearances.
Apart from Wolves, he has also scored against Manchester City, Brighton & Hove Albion, and Tottenham Hotspur.