Connor Wickham seals EFL Cup win for Crystal Palace against Blackpool

The EFL Cup might be Crystal Palace’s best chance of tangible success this season and on a muggy night in south London they barely broke sweat in taking their first steps towards it. Palace recorded a comfortable 2-0 victory against League Two Blackpool, a performance without many flourishes but will be filed under ‘job done’, after a sticky start to the Premier League season.

“We were a great cup team last year – in both competitions – and we want to be again,” the Palace manager, Alan Pardew, said after the game. “That was highlighted by the strength of the team I put out.”

It was a strong team: despite seven changes to the side beaten by Tottenham Hotspur at the weekend, Christian Benteke made his Palace debut, as did Steve Mandanda in goal, and both received glowing reviews from their manager.

Benteke lasted until half-time (the plan from the start) but Pardew saw “flashes” of the centre-forward he wants, and that Palace need. “I want him to get to the level where he was prior to Liverpool,” Pardew said. “The reason he wasn’t at that level was he didn’t play enough. He’s going to get a good flow of games here.”

Palace, a yard ahead of their League Two opponents at all times, seemed particularly keen to get their new striker a goal as quickly as possible, feeding him with cross after cross, but their opener came from a more unusual source. A ball from the left was not properly cleared, it fell to Scott Dann who smacked the ball goalwards and it thudded into the side of the net via Clark Robertson and the goalkeeper Sam Slocombe. The Palace celebrations were so low-key that barely anyone spotted it had gone in, and fans remained in their seats until the players slowly gathered to solemnly congratulate each other. Maybe, as it was Palace’s first goal of the season, they had just forgotten what one looked like.

Benteke’s replacement Connor Wickham doubled the lead within two minutes of coming on, powering a shot into the roof of the net from a low Jason Puncheon cross. Wickham might feel threatened by Benteke’s arrival, but Pardew did his best to spin the £32m signing as a positive for him. “Connor had great responsibility because he was the only striker we had. Christian’s arrival has taken a bit of weight off him – you could see that, he was fresher, sharper, and looked all the better for it.”

From there Palace more or less treated the game as an extended practice exercise, with Blackpool’s orange kits providing convincing replacements for training cones. Blackpool were game enough but were breezily outclassed, and for a club who have been through what they have, being schooled by a Premier League team is not even in the top 50 of their most embarrassing indignities.

Perhaps in the end Palace could wonder if the scoreline might have more accurately reflected their dominance but Pardew was satisfied. “We’re through, no injuries...I couldn’t have asked for anything more really tonight.”