Andros Townsend knows talent alone is not enough to guarantee Crystal Palace’s Premier League safety.

Palace gave their survival hopes a big boost at relegation rivals Huddersfield, where goals from James Tomkins and Luka Milivojevic clinched them a 2-0 win.

Roy Hodgson’s side, buoyed by the return of talisman Wilfried Zaha, snapped a four-game losing run to climb back out of the bottom three, but Townsend issued a warning.

“In a relegation battle you need more than talent,” the winger said. “You need heart and desire.

“You need everything we showed out there today and we’re going to need that same attitude in the last seven games if we’re going to survive.”

Townsend knows what it takes having twice been involved in failed relegation battles with former clubs QPR and Newcastle.

“I’ve been in teams before when people said we were too good to go down, we know that’s never the case,” he said.

“We’ve had a lot of injuries to key players at key moments. Hopefully everyone’s on the way back and we can have a strong end to the season and finish on a high.”

Zaha’s influence after recovering from a knee injury was key to Palace’s success at the John Smith’s Stadium, while the timely returns of Mamadou Sakho, Yohan Cabaye and Ruben Loftus-Cheek also galvanised the Eagles.

In the nine games in total Zaha has missed through injury this season, Palace have not won a single point.

“Yeah I think that’s a massive boost – Wilf,” Townsend added. “The stats when he’s not in the team – I don’t need to harp on about it, but he’s an incredible player for us.

“We need to keep him fit if we’re going to survive and get more performances from him like he did today and drag us to more victories.”

Huddersfield defender Chris Lowe could not hide his disappointment at another missed opportunity, but insists the West Yorkshire club will survive.

“Maybe nobody will expect now that we will do it,” said the German left-back, a half-time replacement for Scott Malone.

“But we will make sure we keep our heads up and try everything in our next game. We still believe we will do it.”

The Terriers had been hoping to build on recent wins against Bournemouth and West Brom, but in back-to-back home games against fellow strugglers Swansea and Palace they have taken only one point.

“We expected a bit more out of the last two games to be honest,” Lowe said.

“But nobody should be surprised that we are around the relegation zone with seven games to go.

“That is probably our biggest advantage – that we have known before that we will have to fight until the end and that is what we’ll do.”