Mauricio's verdict on Palace

The intensity of the team’s performance was key for Mauricio Pochettino as we celebrated a 4-0 win against Crystal Palace in the Premier League on Saturday.

That was the word he kept going back to as he gave us his thoughts on an impressive victory wrapped up by half-time with all four goals in the first half.

Indeed, Palace boss Roy Hodgson described our start as ‘barnstorming’ as we raced into a 3-0 lead by the midway point of the first half – Heung-Min Son struck twice and there were two assists for returning right-back Serge Aurier, the second goal deflected home off Patrick van Aanholt. Erik Lamela completed the scoring after a sweeping move.

“I’m so happy,” said Mauricio. “From the beginning we showed good intensity, focus and then our quality – and that’s why I’m so happy.

“It was a very important victory for us. The feeling was that we were so aggressive, I think we surprised them because when you watched our form in previous games, we never were aggressive like today.

“The plan was to be aggressive, to show intensity from the beginning and all the credit to the players, they made an unbelievable start to the game.

“It was such an important performance for us to start to build our belief and start to win games because in the Premier League, we need to be in a good position.

“Now we need to keep pushing the squad... not to play well or not so well, I’m not talking about performance, I’m talking about the will, the intensity, the togetherness. That is the challenge, to be all together and fighting for big things.”

Next up, the start of our Champions League campaign with our first group match away to Olympiacos in Greece on Wednesday (5.55pm UK).