Adam Wharton has recalled how his Crystal Palace move was 18 months in the making.

The young midfielder left Blackburn Rovers for Palace in January.

He told the club's website: “Funnily enough, it was after my first Championship start which would have been late August, early September of 2022.

“Dougie [Freedman] was actually at that game, my manager told me. There was interest but I was never going to move at that time or anything.

“The interest was there for quite a long time, which is also a sort of bonus.

“[It's] like an incentive for me that I was a player that they were invested in, in a way. They were spending all that time interested. It wasn't just a little impulse. So that was a factor that I took in to sort of help me make my decision."