Terry Venables wasted no time in starting his Palace rebuilding programme following Palace's Intertoto Cup exit on Saturday, writes Owen Phillips.

Liverpool youngster Nicky Rizzo is expected to be the first name to join El Tel's Palace revolution later this week. And others will soon be following suit as Venables finally turns his 100 per cent attention to south London after his holiday and television commitments.

He will do so safe in the knowledge the management and players can focus solely on the promotion campaign after the Eagles crashed out of the muchmaligned preliminary UEFA Cup qualifying tournament to Samsunspor.

The competition was seen by the incoming Palace boss as a nuisance, offering only a distraction from his priority of a quick return to the Premiership. And two goals from Serkan Aykut, one in the first couple of minutes and one in the last minute, ensured it remained only a very brief distraction.

Speaking after the aggregate 4-0 defeat Venables said: "The competition came too early for us. They were a very strong side but I was a lot happier with the way we played in the second game."

He added that he was now looking to build for the future and hoping to sign some promising young players in time for the season kick off on August 8.

"We need to build a bigger squad for the top level and we are trying to sign players with potential that we can develop through the club."

Palace continued their pre-season build up with a trip to Gillingham last night (Wednesday) followed by a visit to Millwall at the New Den on Saturday,

Neil Shipperley will miss the trip to Kent with a wrist injury but is expected to be back for Saturday. Attilio Lombardo also missed the game.

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