James McArthur pulls no punches after Crystal Palace’s defeat at Chelsea

James McArthur admitted that Crystal Palace “weren’t at it” after they lost 3-0 against Chelsea on Saturday.

Goals from Marcus Alonso, Christian Pulisic and Trevoh Chalobah gave the Blues a comfortable win on the opening day of the Premier League season.

McArthur said: “It was very tough. They [Chelsea] were on it today. They were on a high from their last game and you could see that. We weren’t quite at the races today, we’re not happy with our performance and they punished us.

“They were hard to handle, they caused us a good few problems. In the changing room there’s not an acceptance there of just they were good. We know we need to better and we need to make sure we put it right next week.

“He [Patrick Vieira] demanded us to try and get on the ball, be a bit braver. He did that at the start of the game but they pressed very well and we just couldn’t get out.

“They were on it, we weren’t and it was a bad day at the office for us.

“There’s been positive signs over the way we tried to play, throughout pre-season we tried to work on another identity of playing and we’ll keep building on that.

“We need to make sure we learn from today but try and make sure we do what we can do next week.

“We need to show what we can do against Brentford next week. That’s a massive game but we’ll look forward to the journey ahead.”

PICTURE: KEITH GILLARD