That goal has been a long time coming - O'Dowda

Wednesday, October 25th 2017

City winger Callum O'Dowda scored his first goal for the club as City romped to a 4-1 win against Crystal Palace.

The 22-year-old Republic of Ireland international's volley was the fourth and final goal in Tuesday night's Carabao Cup fixture at Ashton Gate.

The Robins went behind but turned the tie around thanks to goals from Matty Taylor, Milan Djuric and a screamer from Joe Bryan, before O'Dowda added the icing on the City cake.

For City, the win came off the back of a 3-0 Championship defeat to Leeds and so was the perfect response from Lee Johnson's players.

O'Dowda told BCTV: "I think the standards that we set at the start of the season weren't there against Leeds. That performance wasn't great and the intensity wasn't there but if you look at how we played last night, we were definitely on the other side. We went at it and and the fans were brilliant from the first minute. They were the 12th man and I'm looking forward to who we are going to get next.

"Crystal Palace were probably the better team in the first half but when you're winning 2-1 against them it gave us a safety net to kick on. We knew at half time that we had to keep the pressure going and we knew hey would come out with high intensity so I'm delighted.

"It [my goal] has been a long time coming. The amount of times I've hit the bar or come inches to scoring so I'm just overwhelmed. On a night like this, to help the boys as well and now I'm looking forward to the possibility of getting a top-four Premier League team next."

Joe Bryan's drive on the hour-mark made the score 3-1 before O'Dowda'sdriven volley less than minutes later added to Palace's misery.

So who's goal was better? O'Dowda said: "I think Joe's was better. To be honest I didn't think he would shoot from that angle, neither did the keeper, but he's got a great strike in his locker but I'm also happy myself.

"We've beaten three Premier League teams so far so we'd like to think we can go all the way but you have to be realistic as well but let's see."

City enter the quarter-final draw of the competition for the first time since 1989. The next round draw will be streamed live on Twitter on Thursday.