Cahill calls on Palace to push on after tough run

Gary Cahill says it is important Crystal Palace don’t ease off when they emerge from their difficult run of fixtures. The Eagles’ excellent start to the season has been derailed by their last four games, which has seen them come up against Manchester City, Arsenal, Leicester and Chelsea.
Roy Hodgson’s men have taken just one point from those games and face another stiff test after the international break when they host unbeaten league leaders Liverpool on November 23.
Having been in a European spot when their difficult run started, Palace have slipped all the way down to 12th place but will fancy their chances of climbing back up the table following the Liverpool game.
With the exception of Burnley and Bournemouth, all of the south London side’s games during the busy December period are against teams in the bottom half of the standings.
Palace take on Watford, Brighton, Newcastle, West Ham, Southampton and Norwich before welcoming Arsenal to Selhurst Park on January 1 and that is a run of games they should be targeting when it comes to getting back into the habit of winning.
Cahill, who has performed well since joining the Eagles on a free transfer in the summer, has now warned his colleagues they can’t start feeling safe just because they are entering an easier run of matches.
The experienced defender wants to see Palace raise the intensity for their upcoming games, believing it is important they go hard at it over December. “The most important thing when you come out the back of these [tough] fixtures is not to think ‘oh, ok we’re alright now’,” he told the Evening Standard. “It’s very dangerous to do that. You’ve got to go the other way – you’ve got to come out of the back of these games and go even harder, as hard as you possibly can.”