Ian Holloway has thanked whoever left excrement in Crystal Palace’s dressing room prior to their play-off semi-final at Albion for giving him the easiest team talk of his career.

The Eagles were greeted by the disgusting deposit when they arrived at the Amex Stadium for last Monday’s second leg.

Holloway’s side were underdogs going into that match following the goalless home leg three days earlier but two Wilfried Zaha goals secured a 2-0 win and a Wembley final against Watford on Monday to decide who will play in the Premier League next season.

Eagles boss Holloway said: “I have to thank that person for doing me the biggest favour. I didn’t have to gee the players up at all, in fact I had to calm them down. I’ve never seen a look like that on Wilf’s face.

“So how stupid is that person? He got Palace to play like that.

“It never ceases to amaze me, how low will some people go.’’ Albion have formally apologised to Palace and launched an internal investigation.

Holloway is now keen to draw a line under the unsavoury incident.

“You have to act with dignity and I believe Brighton have,” he added.

“It must be difficult, with a stadium like that, to stop a complete lunatic trying to spoil what Brighton do – we all know what a good club Brighton are. We chose to keep it to ourselves, I trust they will do it in the right way. Brighton’s a fantastic club – although that didn’t endear them to me.

“It’s a silly, nonsensical thing but it’s not as bad as it used to be when people would throw their seats at the away fans. No one was hurt so let’s just treat it that Brighton will deal with it.

“I thank them for the bottle of wine they gave me after I told them about it. Someone got into our dressing room who shouldn’t have done but Brighton responded it to it very well.”