PUBLISHED
23:26 13th May 2013
by Will Jago
Gus Poyet accepts that everyone will feel down following tonight’s defeat at the hands of Crystal Palace but urged players and supporters to look back on the season with pride.
The Albion boss told seagulls.co.uk, “It wasn’t to be but I don’t want everyone to feel too bad because it’s still been a very good season. For a few days everyone will be sad but I’m still very proud of the players.
“That’s football and when it’s a play-off it’s always very tight. We were not ourselves today and when that’s the case at this stage you are going to struggle, and we were poor technically, but it wasn’t our night.
“I said thank you to the players because they put us at this level in the league and they put this football club on the world map. Everybody now looks at this football club in a different way, with an identity when people play football and where players want to come and become better players.
“If you care for this football club you will be very sad because it’s a feeling that is very difficult to take away. The players gave everything and they all tried their best.
“You can’t analyse the whole season by 30 minutes. The connection between the players and the fans was there and we wanted to give the fans the chance to go to Wembley. We tried our best.
“It was the best that we could do and if it wasn’t enough we need to accept it.”
Two second-half Wilfried Zaha goals eventually summonsed Poyet’s men to play-off defeat and he admitted that the game became too open for his liking.
“We were not good on the ball which was a bit to do with nerves probably. We tried to change in the second half but the game opened up too much and we gave chances away that we should not have done.
“We needed to change and that change almost won us the game because a few seconds later we had a few chances with Ashley Barnes and it almost put us in front. That was the difference today; we needed to score first so that we could maintain that.
“The feeling is terrible. If we finished two weeks ago without playing these two games we would feel like we won something because we have had a brilliant season. Now we go home miserable and feeling terrible."
Original article