Alan Pardew will have a full squad for the first time in pre-season next week, as Palace’s Euro 2016 players return for a race to be fit for the start of the season.
The Welsh and French players who took part in latter stages of the tournament have been given an extended summer to rest up ahead of the new Premier League campaign which kick starts in less than three weeks.
Joe Ledley, Wayne Hennessey and Jonny Williams all featured for Wales in the championships with good performances from all players throughout the tournament which saw Chris Coleman’s side reach the semi-finals, where they lost to eventual winners Portugal.
On the other side of the Palace contingent, Yohan Cabaye and summer signing Steve Mandanda were included in the French squad which lost to Portugal in final of Euro 2016. Yohan Cabaye was the only player who featured out of the pair for France will a small amount of game time.
Alan Pardew commented on the time needed for them to recover from the Euros in his Daily Mail column at the beginning of July. He said: “These players will need three weeks off now, which means they do not return to work until the start of August. That means we will almost certainly have to start the season without them.
“The same will apply to other clubs, such as West Ham, who have seen Dimitri Payet put so much into his home nation, especially in the early matches, but he will need a rest. Going into their new stadium, that is not happy reading for their fans.
“We expect so much. There is the intensity we expect from every game and they are physically and mentally drained. They get constant expectation at international level, and at Palace they get constant expectation from me.
“My fellow managers will be the same. We want all of it, all of the time. And it’s hard for players to maintain the levels and avoid the inevitable dips. We have to find a way of helping them.”
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