CRYSTAL Palace striker Jermaine Easter revealed the Eagles’ squad were left disappointed after their dramatic 3-3 draw with Reading at the weekend.

Easter came on as a second half substitute and put Palace 3-2 ahead for the third time in the 68th minute, only for Noel Hunt to equalise five minutes later.

That left Easter, as well as most of the Selhurst Park crowd, deflated at only taking a point.

He said: “It did feel like a defeat to be fair.

“When my goal went in I thought we could have held on for the win but it wasn’t to be.

“It was a bit of a crazy game, we should have had the game won after 30 minutes or so because we started off like a house on fire but obviously they got back into it and we are disappointed to only take a point.

“Reading are up there in the league, so a point could be seen as a decent result.

“But because we have been playing so well at home, and being 2-0 up only to end 3-3, we are disappointed.”

After racing into a two-goal lead, the Eagles were left raging after Reading were awarded a penalty when captain Paddy McCarthy was adjudged to have pushed Shane Long over in the area.

McCarthy let Long know exactly what he thought of the decision at the time and Easter only had sympathy for his team mate.

He added: “You see challenges like that every week and if the referees are going to give a penalty for that sort of challenge, then there are going to be penalties every week.

“I’m sure Paddy feels let down but it is part and parcel of the game and you have to get on with it.

“We obviously went up the other end and got a penalty of our own which we didn’t convert, so it is disappointing.”

Despite this, it was still a satisfying individual performance for Easter who grabbed his first goal for the Eagles with a neat volley after good work down the left flank from Dean Moxey.

The striker is now hoping he can keep scoring goals and fire his way back into manager Dougie Freedman’s plans with the manager favouring James Vaughan in a 4-5-1 formation in recent weeks.

Easter said: “Every striker wants to get off the mark and it was pleasing to do that. “I have been disappointed not to be playing to be fair because I feel in the games I have played in, although I haven’t scored, I have felt sharp and felt like I was a threat.

“Obviously strikers are judged on goals, so as long as I am scoring goals hopefully that will be enough to keep me in the team.”

The manner of the draw against the Royals was made worse with most of the teams around Palace also dropping points.

A win would have lifted the Eagles six points clear of Scunthorpe, who still have two games in hand.

Easter again expressed his disappointment but urged his team-mates not to think too much about the results with some important matches remaining.

He added: “It was two points dropped when you see the other results with the other teams around us losing.

“We could have gone six points clear but we can’t dwell on that too much because we have got a lot of games coming up and hopefully we can take the points required to stay in this division.”

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