Crystal Palace’s training stepped up in intensity this week, following the Eagles’ 2-1 win over Oxford United, and the lads were joined by new signing Eberechi Eze at the end of the week.
At the end of the players’ second week back in training, Palace prepared to take on Charlton Athletic in their next pre-season friendly – and were also joined by several of the club’s promising young south Londoners such as John-Kymani Gordon and Malachi Boateng.
And, on Friday, Eze started alongside them, beginning his first training session as a Palace player and meeting his new teammates.
The 22-year-old attacker got off to a flying start, too, netting three goals in the space of 20 seconds, which you can see in the video below.
And in the gallery above, see how the wider session went and how Eze settled in on the Beckenham turf.
Speaking to cpfc.co.uk at the end of last season, assistant manager Ray Lewington explained what changes at this stage of pre-season training: “Roy [Hodgson] and I do talk to each other prior to going into a season but basically, the first few days are left to the fitness guys. We go in and let the fitness guys take the first few days so they get a base. We don’t just go in and hit them with tactical stuff.
“We leave the balls out of it to an extent for the first three-four days. We get a little bit of fitness into their legs and then start introducing balls, which is usually not really important stuff – it’s just getting used to kicking a ball again. And then in that second week we start introducing the tactical side of the game.”
cpfc.co.uk
