Sam Allardyce 'relieved' to secure first Crystal Palace league win

Crystal Palace manager Sam Allardyce has admitted that he was "relieved" to secure his first league win in charge with a 2-0 victory over Bournemouth.

The Eagles wrapped up the points courtesy of goals from Scott Dann and Christian Benteke, and the former Sunderland boss was adamant that the result was fair.

"It's relief for me. It really should have happened in the first game at Watford and it's been a long haul since," BBC Sport quotes Allardyce as saying.

"The players today looked like what I would expect a team of mine to look like. You can't argue with the result with the amount of chances we created. They executed the game plan brilliantly today. It's a great result. It's a first clean sheet, hopefully of many. It's three massive points away from home. I'm so pleased about the 'nil'.

"The key today was keeping Bournemouth in front of us. We've let too many people get through us and behind us recently and we had to stop that. I think Bournemouth found that frustrating."

The result leaves Palace in 18th place in the table, but they are now just two points away from Swansea City in the nearest position of safety.