Having named some youngsters in our Premier League Asia Trophy travelling squad, Crystal Palace manager Frank de Boer has said our youth will be given the opportunity to shine before he overly looks at potential new signings.
As part of that de Boer has decided to field an Under 23 side in this Saturday’s pre season friendly opener against Maidstone United and as a consecuence of that the development fixture against Basingstoke Town set for the same day has now been cancelled.
With his coaching career so far having very much a youthful edge to it, including his time at Ajax seeing him work with young Toby Alderweireld, Jan Vertonghen and Christian Eriksen to name just three, he’s ready to cast his eye over our next generation before decisions are made.
Speaking to Crystal Palace FC, de Boer explained.
‘We have been training very hard and, as I have discussed before, we have very talented players, so I want to see the under-23s playing. I will manage the team as well as the under-23 coach Richard Shaw, because I want to see how they will perform at game level.’
Sky Sports also have him saying.
‘If you want to buy other players, first you have to look in your own kitchen and we have some talented players. People at Palace are very nice, very helpful and really want to make something good out of it. Also the players, they are giving 100 per cent in every training session, it is good to work, so I have nothing to complain about right now. It is more about getting the fitness load into their body, then next week we will go to more shorter games and the intensity getting higher and higher. That is our build-up and in between we are hopefully going to modify our system better and better.’
Goalkeeper Jasper Cillessen and defender Jairo Riedewald continue to be heavily linked with us given their Ajax connections, but nice to see de Boer is open to promotion first.
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