February 13 2014

Tom Ince (Photo: Andy Roberts)

TOM INCE has dismissed claims that Crystal Palace play the long ball under Tony Pulis.

Manager Pulis had been criticised for his direct style of football and encouraging his team to play in an aggressive manner while he was at Stoke City.

But deadline day signing INCE, who scored one and made one goal on his debut in the win over West Brom last week, says that doesn't happen at Palace.

"What we do is play effective football and we play to our strengths," he said.

"When you have got people like Marouane Chamakh and Glenn Murray through the middle, you get the ball into feet and then you get the likes of Bolasie, Puncheon and myself running off them.

"That’s how we do, we get the ball wide, we get one-v-one’s, we get ball in the box.

"What we do is effective. I wouldn’t say it was direct, we look to play when we can but what we do is play in the final third when we got shots off and we get chances.

"The gaffer said ‘we play counter-attacking football’, and we saw that against West Brom with the amount of times we caught them on the break.

"We sucked them in with the pressure then we spring with the front four that we’ve got.

"The gaffer knows what he wants to do. He’s been here and done this before and the lads are really pulling in the right way now."