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Damien Delaney hails Crystal Palace character after draw with Everton

Defender Damien Delaney praised Crystal Palace's character after they secured a 1-1 draw at Everton.

Palace trailed at half-time to Romelu Lukaku's free kick, but the visitors equalised through a Christian Benteke header in a second half and they looked like the team most likely to go on and win after that.

Palace came from two goals down last weekend to win 3-2 against Sunderland and Delaney believes that is a sign of a close-knit squad.

"We'll always stick at it and keep going,'' he said in an interview on Sky Sports 2. "We showed that at Sunderland last week and again here tonight.''

Delaney might have even won the game, when his header was ruled out when James McArthur was ruled offside following his positioning in front of goalkeeper Maarten Stekelenberg.

"He [referee Jon Moss] said that James McArthur was down the line of the goalkeeper, but we'll take a draw,'' Delaney added.

Palace boss Alan Pardew revealed that the assistant referee informed him that he flagged Delaney offside, rather than McArthur.

"His explanation was he thought Damo was offside,'' Pardew said.

"I know you guys are indicating that Macca was probably the one that goes across the line of the ball. I think we can feel harsh done by. If that's what his call was he got it wrong, but they make mistakes and we have to accept that.

"I thought our general play deserved that goal.''

Everton boss Ronald Koeman praised his team but admitted they might have been lucky Delaney's header was ruled out.

"They scored for 2-1 and maybe it's not offside because it was so difficult to understand all the decisions of the referee today,'' Koeman said.

"I had a talk to Pardew and we are really upset -- there were a lot of yellow cards. C'mon it's the Premier League, it's football.''

He added: "It's a good point. You like to win at home from 1-0 up, but it's very tough. A big compliment to the team how we defend the second ball and set plays against a difficult team.

"It's not a bad point.''

The point was good enough to move Everton up to third place in the Premier League table, although defender Phil Jagielka said they would head into the international break feeling as though there is room to improve under new boss Ronald Koeman.

"[We're] still a work in progress. We've got some good results,'' he said.

"We've played well for about half of each game and some of those halves have been good enough to win games and some of them haven't.

"We need get a bit more consistency through the 90 minutes and win a few more games.''