Jesurun Rak-Sakyi has opened up on how felt when told he’d be making his first senior start for Crystal Palace against Manchester United.
The 19-year-old winger - voted Palace’s Under-23 player of the season last month for a blistering Premier League 2 campaign - made his first-team debut off the bench against Chelsea on the opening day of the season. He then had to wait 10 months before his next taste of senior action when Patrick Vieira told him he would start against United at Selhurst Park on the final day.
Rak-Sakyi featured on the right-wing, playing for 67 minutes before being substituted for Cheikhou Kouyate with the Eagles 1-0 up. The teenager was given a standing ovation by the home fans when his number went up on the board, taking in the full appreciation of Selhurst Park as he made his way off the pitch.
READ MORE: Why Liverpool and Manchester United are affecting Crystal Palace summer transfer plans
"I found out just before kick-off, about an hour before," Rak-Sakyi said of the moment he knew he’d be starting. "When I saw that I was a bit nervous. But, at the same time, all the lads were helping me, just telling me to be confident, so it was really good from them.
"The majority of them were just saying be confident because I got here for a reason, so I shouldn’t change my game. I should just play how I’ve been playing and I’ll be alright. It’s an incredible feeling. I was really comfortable. As the game went on I started to grow my confidence. It was really good."
Rak-Sakyi has just finished a stellar season playing for Paddy McCarthy’s Under-23s where he finished as the Premier League 2 joint-top goalscorer with 18 strikes in 25 appearances, just missing out on the player of the season to Manchester City’s James McAtee. The winger has trained with the Palace first-team sporadically throughout the season and was expected to build on his debut off the bench against Chelsea during the final few games of the season.
"I don’t complain if I don’t get a start, but I’m always ready for when I need to be called upon," he added. "I’ve worked my socks off for the Under-23s – week in, week out – and I'm just happy enough that I got the chance. We wanted a clean sheet and we wanted to keep performing well here because the fans deserve it. It was just a great performance by the team."
Asked what manager Patrick Vieira had taught him since working more closely with the Frenchman, Rak-Sakyi said: "To be confident. That we shouldn’t change our games when we’re coming over. We should just train how we train across the road and that will just make us better and build more confidence as a team.
"I just like to be myself. Of course, I watch a lot of the top Premier League wingers right now, but I just try to base my game on myself and just express myself in the way I know I’ve been growing up and I’ve been playing."
Crystal Palace and Rak-Sakyi now face the difficult decision of whether to continue the winger’s development at the club or send him out on loan to receive first-team experience further down the football pyramid. There is an acceptance in SE25 that Palace made a mistake not sending him on loan in January, though finding a suitable club is a difficult challenge as Vieira has outlined previously.
"When we send a payer on loan we should know everything about the club that we are sending the player to," said the Frenchman. "Some of the players will need to keep playing week in and week out and to keep making mistakes which will allow them to grow as a player and to learn. We have to find the right place where those young players can improve themselves.
"It’s one the most difficult thing to do to find the right place to send a player to on loan. You need to find the right club where players will play.
"You need to find the club that will allow players to make mistakes but to keep playing them. But we all know sometimes when you make a mistake it can cost a manager’s job so it’s difficult. We have to think and to work well to try and find the right place to keep the players developing themselves."
For Rak-Sakyi, improvement is all that’s on his mind for the next campaign. "My hopes are just to do better than I did this season,” he said. "Just building on every season – bigger and better things. Hopefully, I’ll get more chances and more enjoyable moments like this."
