Ward on ‘unfortunate’ Palace defeat
Joel Ward says Crystal Palace were unlucky not to come away from Bournemouth with a positive result, as the Eagles slipped to a late defeat at the Vitality in a game decided by fine margins.
“I think we probably deserved more out of the game,” the captain said after the game. “It's obviously annoying to come away with nothing, but I think really we should have come away with at least a point.
"But there's lessons to learn and we go again on the weekend and we just have to keep on moving forward.”
With this match just the fifth since new manager Oliver Glasner took over, Ward says the players are still making progress in implementing a new style of play despite a disappointing result on the road.
“You can never stop learning, so I think we're continuously on that path and we're trying to improve in the areas that we need to improve and obviously develop in the new system,” the captain explained.
“I think that does take time, but I think there's been encouraging signs throughout the period of time that obviously the gap has been in and it's been six or seven weeks or whatever in games.
“We're making the strides in the right direction and tonight, like I said, we were just unfortunate enough to come away with at least a point.”
Palace scored just before half-time through Ebere Eze, but were denied by the narrowest of offside decisions from the Video Assistant Referee after Jean-Philippe Mateta was offside in the build-up.
“The rub of green isn't going your way, but that's football,” Ward admitted. “We dust ourselves down and we go again and on another day it falls our way and something comes about.
“It was even late on with a few chances and we had opportunities and a debatable penalty and what have you, so it's one of those games that things didn't quite drop our way.”