Travers finds it no breeze at Selhurst park

Playing Mark Travers again at Crystal Palace after his debut was a no brainer. He won a lot of plaudits after his man of the match performance against Tottenham, and yet it was perhaps tempting fate that he could have another clean sheet in his second AFCB game.

Travers had a more comfortable match day at Dean Court than at Selhurst Park.

The afternoon turned out very differently on Sunday compared to the first Saturday in May for Mark Travers. Shipping five goals was no doubt a bigger experience than the clean sheet against Spurs, as he will come away from that game questioning every aspect of the five goals to see whether he could have done any better. I don't expect any of his team-mates will have a bad word to say about Mark's game, as it could have happened to any of AFCB's goal keepers. In truth, it was the team's inability to defend as a unit more than any goalkeeping mistakes that saw Palace put five goals past Travers.

The reaction is what Eddie Howe will want to see. While there are no more games now in an AFCB shirt until pre-season, it will be a summer of more tests for Travers in an international Republic of Ireland squad and his progress is going to be keenly scrutinised. Next season it is likely that Travers will be loaned out like Aaron Ramsdale was this season. If Ramsdale gets the number three keeper position and Asmir Begovic leaves, and a new keeper is added to the squad it's difficult to see how Travers will get any games at AFCB.

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While the team has not covered itself in glory by keeping the goals against down as low as they might have been, the crop of young keepers that are at AFCB are likely to become the envy of other teams. Loaning them out is how they will get experience, but Travers should find it easier to play in pressured games at a lower level now having played at the very top. I'd love to see youth get more than one or two game sin a season, but i I don't expect Howe to give a young keeper like Travers more games next season than he has had in 2018-19.