It may only be pre-season, but Connor Wickham insists that Crystal Palace have a lot to learn after a humbling 6-2 defeat at Barnet last night (Tuesday).
A Palace side mainly consisting of U23 players, along with Wickham, Alexander Sorloth, Jairo Riedewald and goalkeeper Stephen Henderson, lost out at The Hive, with the Bees coming from behind to hit the Eagles for six.
And Wickham, who netted his first goal of pre-season as the Eagles took a 2-0 lead, says Palace must do better after their performance against their National League opponents.
"We got off to a flyer I think," he said, speaking to Palace TV .
"The boys performed really well in the first half an hour. At two goals up we were cruising and then we gave a cheap penalty away and from then they took advantage of the space that we had in behind. We can take some positives from the first half an hour but there’s also a lot for us to learn. A lot for us to learn from the next five goals that went in.
"I think as footballers we should always want to win every single game, regardless of whether we’re playing Manchester City or we’re playing Barnet in a pre-season game. We should want to win every single game so it’s frustrating not to win.
“It doesn’t matter what side we put out, we have to try to win the game. I think for the last 60 minutes we didn’t play as well as we should have and it showed in the game."
This was the third pre-season friendly for Palace, after returning from their tour of Switzerland, where they faced FC Luzern and BSC Young Boys.
Palace are next in action in pre-season on Friday night when they travel to face Championship side Nottingham Forest.
