Saturday 15 April 2017 18:17, UK
Sam Allardyce paid tribute to his Crystal Palace players after they battled back to earn a "precious point" against Leicester on Saturday.
Robert Huth and Jamie Vardy put the visitors into a two-goal lead at Selhurst Park but goals by Yohan Cabaye and Christian Benteke secured a 2-2 draw.
Palace, who have won five of their last seven league matches, now sit seven points clear of 18th-place Swansea having taken another step towards Premier League survival.
"It's a tremendous point for us," Allardyce said. "If you can't win, don't lose. The lads have rushed in and seen all the others below us so it's another point away from the bottom three.
"It's another game gone closer to the end of the season and it's a precious point keeping our run going.
"When you look at five wins, one draw and one defeat in seven for a team that's been in the bottom three most of the year, it's a pretty good run.
"We have difficult games coming up, none more so than this today and we knew it was going to be difficult because they play a very good system.
"It's different to Arsenal and Chelsea and sometimes we had a little trouble breaking it down. In the end, though, we broke it down to come storming back from 2-0 down and I couldn't have seen that in this team when I first got here.
"The desire and determination of the players to not let their heads drop, to fight back against the champions, they deserve a lot of praise today."
Allardyce admitted he was disappointed with the defending for Huth's opener before Palace conceded to Vardy's counter-attacking "sucker-punch" seven minutes after half-time.
"We fell to the long throw, which we talked about and was very disappointing," the Palace boss added.
"Particularly our marking because we let Huth have a free header. That knocked us back a bit but we bounced back without really creating anything in the first half.
"We then fell foul to the sucker punch of counter-attacking football, which Leicester are really good at. After that, it was brilliant.
"We didn't feel sorry for ourselves and eventually we could have won the game."
