Adam Wharton believes Crystal Palace’s display merited more against Manchester City than the final score suggested – but admits the team must also take encouragement and learn key lessons from the contest.
The Eagles were arguably the stronger side for large spells of open play – registering 14 shots to City’s seven – yet were undone by three ruthless finishes at Selhurst Park.
Wharton told Palace TV: “I don’t think the result shows the performance we put in. I thought we played well, and we created opportunities.
“But when you play a team as good as City, with the players they’ve got, you give them half a chance and they take it, and that’s what they did today.
“It was frustrating, because we definitely didn’t deserve to lose 3-0, but this is football, it’s what’s happened, and we’ve got to learn from this. Hopefully we can.
“There are many positives to take. I’m sure we’ll go through the game and look at those positives.
“The gaffer said after the match he was really happy with our performance. He said it was a lot better than even when we beat them in the [FA] Cup. I think there’s obviously positives to take, but also, we’ve lost 3-0. We need to look at where we went wrong and rectify that.”
Palace now head into a demanding run of fixtures across three competitions ahead of Christmas, and Wharton added: “The schedule is tight, with a lot of games, thick and fast, in this period for us.
“We’re going to hopefully get three wins going into Christmas – that would be nice. We’ll rest and recover now and ready for Thursday, and then the two games quickly after that.
“Hopefully, we can get up for it and get three points [against KuPS Kuopio and Leeds], and then, obviously, advance [in the EFL Cup] on the 23rd.”