Lech Poznan victory 'a great step forward' for Palace, says Wharton

Adam Wharton believes Crystal Palace took "a great step forward" by beginning their Europa League campaign with a 4-0 thrashing of 10-man Lech Poznan on Thursday. 

Having won just one of their opening four Premier League fixtures under new boss Pierre Sage, Palace turned on the style at Selhurst Park with a dominant first-half display. 

Yeremy Pino put Palace ahead in the 10th minute after capitalising on Terry Yegbe's wayward throw, before finishing past Mateusz Lis from inside the penalty area. 

The Eagles doubled their lead 17 minutes later through Chris Richards, with the American looping a header from a Wharton corner into the far corner, but Palace were not done there. 

Pino was fouled inside the box by Radoslaw Murawski, with Jorgen Strand Larsen dispatching the spot-kick into the top-left corner to put Palace 3-0 ahead after just 34 minutes. 

Murawski was sent off for a second yellow card three minutes from time, with Eddie Nketiah making Palace's one-man advantage count late on to add more gloss to the scoreline. 

Palace have now won six of their last seven games in major European competitions (L1), including each of their last four, with Thursday's 4-0 win being the Eagles' biggest on the European stage, something Wharton hopes the Conference League champions can build on.

"There's still a lot to work on, still early days, lots of new signings. We are trying to gel as fast as we can," Wharton told TNT Sports. 

"It has been a slow start but tonight was a great step forward. There were still some moments where we could be tighter at the back, but definitely a step in the right direction.

"The manager is very attack-minded, he wants us to get high up. In training, we work on those patterns and I think there were a few good moments where we played one-touch play, and it is good to see that starting to gel.

"When you are on the front foot, you get the crowd behind you as well and on nights like these, getting the crowd behind you helps. It pushed us on.

"Last year was completely new for a lot of the players. It is a different game to the Premier League, a different intensity.

"In this, it is sometimes a bit more tactical. Coming into this season with the experience from last season is only going to help us."

Palace have now kept a clean sheet in four of their last five home games in major European competitions, going unbeaten in each of their last seven European games at Selhurst Park (W5 D2).

They were three goals up by half-time in a home game for just the third time over the last 10 years (also against Norwich City in December 2021 and against West Ham in April 2024 – both in the Premier League).

Palace have struggled domestically thus far though, sitting 16th on three points following last weekend's 3-2 defeat to newly promoted Ipswich Town. 

However, the victory over Poznan injected some confidence into Sage's players, most notably Strand Larsen, who took his goal tally across all competitions to four in six games. 

Strand Larsen also scored his first penalty since netting from 12 yards during his time at Wolves, which came in a 3-2 defeat to Burnley last December. He had missed his previous two spot-kicks for club and country.

"When you miss two [penalties] in a row you have to smack it in. It was a risky one, it was going a bit higher than I expected. I enjoyed it," Strand Larsen told TNT Sports. 

"Yeremy is my brother. Maybe he deserved to take it, but I needed one after missing two. We all just want to show ourselves to the fans.

"When it works, it works really well. We could have won this game by more. We had Sunday's game in the back of our minds."