Joel Ward insists the number of absences from Crystal Palace's preseason tour will not impact their 2022/23 season.
Wilfried Zaha, Marc Guehi and Eberechi Eze are among eight senior players who have not travelled with Palace for matches in Singapore and Australia.
Patrick Vieira described his squad as thin ahead of Tuesday's match against Manchester United at the MCG.
The Frenchman was proven right as United ran rampant for 60 minutes before Erik ten Hag took off all but one player from the starting XI.
Anthony Martial, Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford scored for United before Ward pulled one back with a fine-header after 74 minutes played.
Speaking to reporters in the mixed zone post-match, Ward was asked if the lack of senior players was hurting Palace's preparations for the Premier League campaign.
He said: "It is what it is. For us were preparing right.
"We're all working on the same page and making sure what we do on the training field echoes wherever they are, so its not an issue for us.
"We're back in the UK in over a week's time and we'll the ground running and make sure we're ready for the start of the season."
Several pundits predicted Palace would be relegated after Vieira's appointment as manager in the summer of 2021.
However, the former Arsenal midfielder led the Eagles to a 12th-placed finish, and Ward is confident his team can improve in the upcoming season.
"Obviously we want to better last season there as a few occasions where we could have held out and certainly had a few more points on the board, but they are lessons learnt," Ward said. "I think we have come along way, we saw that in the second-half of the season. We turned those 1-0 margins and kept them as a victory."
Asked if Vieira's system was starting to take hold in the squad, Ward added: "Yeah definitely, when he came in last year in the start of preseason, it's so important to have that time with the players, to get that philosophy and the way in which you want to do things.
"Like I said, the second-half of the season we saw we were getting stronger as a group and understanding what he wants."
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