Cotterill thankful for winning lift

Steve Cotterill feels his side may have received a much-needed confidence boost after their 4-3 penalty shootout victory over Crystal Palace. With the Carling Cup second-round tie locked at 1-1 after 120 minutes, Richard Hughes fired home the decisive spot-kick after Nadir Ciftci and Carl Dickinson had both missed the opportunity to send Pompey through to round three.Cotterill is now hoping his side can build on the victory following a disappointing start to the season which has seen them take just one point from their opening three league games."We didn't give the fans a lot to cheer about in the first half," he admitted."We looked like a team that has been ripped apart; not had the best of starts; not had a good pre-season; looked low on confidence as a team, and that was a big thing for me in the first half."We passed safe all the time and we never took a risk with any of our passes. We never took a risk with any of our runs and that was because of a fear of failure."I told them they needed to forget that and I reminded them they were good players. In the second half they were better."At one stage, we looked as though we would rattle all the penalties in and win comfortably. But up stepped Carl Dickinson just to keep us on our toes a bit more."After 120 minutes, I said to the lads 'we want to win now'. There was no point losing when we had done a game and a half."Cotterill reiterated his desire to hang on to Marc Wilson as fresh reports linked the 23-year-old with a move to Stoke."If Marc Wilson goes anywhere, if he goes anywhere, I wouldn't want him to go and I've really got to say this," added the Pompey boss."But if we get to the situation where the club needs money, I don't actually know what I can do about that."It depends on what I get. There are a couple of clubs around that are interested in Marc."Palace boss George Burley was encouraged by his side's display, but felt they were hard done by following the dismissal of Wilfried Zaha towards the end of normal time for a late challenge on Dickinson."I thought we played some great stuff," said Burley. "We knocked it about well and we created numerous opportunities."We conceded a goal at the start of the second half, which was against the run of play. Then Wilfred Zaha got sent off, which was the biggest disappointment of the night."He was roasting the full-back time and time again. He had no protection from the referee. The linesman saw him flick a leg out after he was kicked first. We're trying to develop young talent here and trying to get them to play football, and referees need to be careful with a talent like that. He needs to be protected."You could see the talent he had and it was great to watch. For me, that spoiled the game for a young talent, who has never hurt anyone in his life or injured anybody, to be sent off like that."We still created a number of chances with 10 men, so I couldn't have asked any more from the boys."I think you could see a number of them struggled to get to the penalty spot with fatigue after the amount of hard work they put in."All credit for the spirit they showed the whole game."

Source: Team_Talk