Crystal Palace to train on new Selhurst Park pitch ahead of Arsenal's visit

Fresh lawn: Palace's pitch was heavily criticised last season
Ian Walton/Getty Images
Giuseppe Muro11 August 2015

Crystal Palace will train on the new Selhurst Park pitch on Friday ahead of their first home game of the season against Arsenal.

Palace had their surface relaid in the summer and Alan Pardew has ordered a practice session on the turf so his players are prepared for the game.

The match on Sunday is the start of a tough run that will see Palace face Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Tottenham in their next five fixtures.

The pitch was heavily criticised last season and Wilfried Zaha believes the new surface will help Palace at home.

“I am glad we managed to sort it out,” he said. “Last season you could be running on it and just hurt your ankle, so I am looking forward to it.

“We have got some difficult games coming up, but the gaffer has told us to have a winning mentality and that we can play if we believe in ourselves.”

Palace won 3-1 at Norwich on the opening day and Joel Ward is eyeing an upset against Arsene Wenger’s side, who were surprisingly beaten by West Ham in their opening game of the season.

“We know they are going to be a force, but if we are on our game then we have got every chance,” said the defender.

“We know we have got a tough start to the season, but we will do everything we can to come out of these games with some points.

Stephen Pond/Getty Images

Read More

“We are growing in confidence. We gave Arsenal two good games last year and were unfortunate not to get something the two times we played them.”

New signing Bakary Sako played an hour for Palace Under-21s last night as he steps up his fitness following his arrival on a free transfer from Wolves.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in