Pardew hails Dann after beating ‘sleepy’ Liverpool

Matt Stead

Alan Pardew was full of praise for Scott Dann after the defender’s performance helped Crystal Palace beat a “sleepy” Liverpool.

Dann scored the winner as Palace earned a third consecutive victory over Liverpool on Sunday, and while Pardew was delighted with his central defender, the manager lauded the “conscious decision” to tackle Liverpool head on after their midweek Europa League exertions.

“I thought it was terrific Premier League game,” Pardew said.

“We made a conscious decision to take the game to Liverpool to see if we could catch them sleepy as they had a tough game on Thursday.

“We got a goal and there was our problem really because then we backed off and let Liverpool start to dominate us and for 15-20 minutes it wasn’t really the game-plan.

“Half-time was important for us and it was a great game second half, end-to-end and our ambition was rewarded in terms of the late goal.

“His (Dann’s) goal sums him up. You could see he was going to win that ball, no-one was going to stop him and he defends like that.

“I really think he has been under-estimated throughout his career and I wouldn’t have said that until I managed him.

“Now I manage him I realise how good he is. He can be really proud of his performance. He was superb in everything he did.”