Yaya Toure says Manchester City fully deserved their victory over Crystal Palace in the FA Cup fourth round.

The Blues cruised through after a comfortable 3-0 win at Selhurst Park and will take their place in Monday’s draw for the last 16.

Toure scored City’s third – a wonderful free-kick that curled into the top corner and gave Wayne Hennessey no chance – to add to goals from Raheem Sterling and Leroy Sane.

The 33-year-old says he was pleased with his strike but admitted he doesn’t get as many chances to take as many free-kicks as he would like because of the quality of dead-ball specialists in City’s squad.

“I don’t want to say I’m lucky all the time but I think today it was a great goal,” he said. “I haven’t had many free-kicks this season because Kevin [De Bruyne] always shoots well, as does [Aleksandar] Kolarov.

“We have a couple of players who shoot very well and it’s good to have competition all the time, it’s positive for the team and we’re looking forward to Wednesday’s game.”

City dominated the game from the off, with their ability to control possession making it difficult for Palace to get a foothold in the game.

At times, the speed of their passing and quality of their counter-attacks was too much for the home side to handle.

Toure praised the quality of City’s display, particularly once the game opened up and allowed them to showcase their pace and power, and says the FA Cup is a priority for the Blues during the second half of the season. 

“We deserved it and in the first half we controlled the game,” he said. “We created some chances and after that Raheem took his chance and the game opened up.

“In the second half they pushed up a little bit but with the quality of players we have, we did the job today.

“When we play against tough teams like Crystal Palace, they were playing well and they’re very strong and but we’ve been working well this week.

“Today we had a tough opponent and we wanted to bounce back after the draw against Tottenham. It was a good result today.

“I hope it’s going to be our year. We need to do a perfect second half of the season and it was hard to start with a draw against Tottenham but we have to keep going.

“The season is very long and the FA Cup is very important for the club and any trophy is going to be welcomed.

“We need to stay tight and continue fighting until the end.”