James Featherstone – the agent of Adam Wharton – has now shared what the Crystal Palace No.20 said to him after that mistake on his debut against Brighton.
The England international was surprisingly thrust into the action after just 28 minutes back in February when Marc Guehi suffered an injury at the Amex Stadium, with Crystal Palace already 1-0 down.
Brighton then went 2-0 up in the 33rd minute, before a nightmarish moment occurred when Adam Wharton was dispossessed immediately from kick-off, and it was 3-0 just seconds later.
Now, the £22m man’s agent has shared how his client responded to that moment…
How Adam Wharton reacted to mistake on Crystal Palace debut
Featherstone has now revealed that the 20-year-old reacted superbly to his mistake against Brighton.
Wharton’s agent told the Guardian: “There’s many more seasoned professionals who would have wanted the ground to swallow them up after that, but he just wanted the ball again straight from kick-off. Adam is a person who is extremely present and in the moment. He doesn’t dwell on the past or speculate on the future.
“I spoke to him afterwards and his very brief reflection was: ‘You don’t get as much time as you do in the Championship and any mistakes will be punished. So I need to smarten up.’”
A top attitude – to say the least – and Wharton has most certainly smartened up since that error.
15 Premier League appearances later, and the Blackburn-born maestro is part of Gareth Southgate’s England squad for UEFA EURO 2024 and is also on Bayern Munich’s radar, in what has been a quite remarkable rise over the past six months.
Top mentality
Nothing seems to phase Wharton, and his superb mentality should stand him in good stead in regards to becoming an England regular.
There has historically been huge pressure on England internationals to perform for the Three Lions – and consequential criticism in the media if things go badly at a major tournament, for example.
It takes a player with thick skin to deal with this, although Wharton seems more than capable of handling the mental demands of being an England international playing Premier League football.
