Andros Townsend has challenged Crystal Palace to heed the lessons from the "missed opportunity" of failing to beat Newcastle.

Misfiring Palace drew a blank in Saturday's Premier League stalemate at Selhurst Park, failing to convert a number of gilt-edged chances.

And the frustrated forward conceded Palace can ill afford to let such openings go begging in the top flight's cut and thrust.

"On the one hand we have to be positive and take that into the next game and remember how well we did play, but on the other hand it's a missed
opportunity," said Townsend.

"And in the Premier League you cannot be creating seven or eight chances and not scoring, so we have to learn from that.

"We now need to work hard on the training pitch this week and next Monday (at Bournemouth) create the same chances but put them away next time."

Townsend conjured inch-perfect crosses for first James McArthur and then Mamadou Sakho that fully merited conversion into goals.

McArthur nodded wide at the far post in the opening exchanges, while Sakho failed to nod home despite staring down an empty net.

Despite failing to capitalise on their dominance and seal victory, Townsend still believes Roy Hodgson's men are moving in the right direction.

"I think we were (the better team) and we created loads of chances and probably should have and could have won the game," Townsend told Palace's
official club website.

"But it's one of those days again where nothing would go in for us so we have to take the point and move on to the next game.

"A lot of the attacking players had chances to score today but I am not going to blame it on one or two players as everyone had chances and no
one took them.

"At the end of the day we were not clinical so we didn't get the three points which we did deserve.

"It was a strong performance in defence and going forward as well, the midfielders and wingers, but we are in a results-based business and we didn't
play well last Saturday but got the three points but played well this Saturday and didn't get the three points.

"But that's the way it goes unfortunately."

Newcastle battled hard for their draw but only truly created one cast-iron opening, the early chance for Ayoze Perez.

The forward could only roll a tame effort straight at Wayne Hennessey when placing the ball either side of the Palace goalkeeper would surely have
opened the scoring.

Newcastle boss Rafael Benitez admitted his side must start to convert such chances in order to climb the table, and secure that elusive first win
of the new campaign.

"We are missing this kind of situation when we have a couple of chances, and we have to do a little better," said Benitez.

"If you score then, the game changes totally. We knew before the game it could be very difficult.

"We were defending well, and after we had two or three situations with the counter-attack where we weren't doing well, we didn't create what we were
expecting.

"In the second half they were pushing harder and we had to defend. We need to ensure we work as a unit, fight for each other and we did it.

"Sometimes you could say it was lucky, but in our situation we were missing the final pass."

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