Neil Warnock took charge of his first game at Selhurst Park in his second spell as Crystal Palace manager and saw his side draw 0-0 against Burnley in the SE25 sun.

Warnock named an attacking side which included the home return of another former Eagle, Wilfried Zaha, but despite the Eagles creating numerous chances, the hero of the day was the Argentinean goalkeeper Julian Speroni who saved an 85th penalty from the visitors.

“I think they broke the mould with him,” said Warnock in the post-match press conference.

“He’s just a one-off but he does that every week and that’s why he’s been here so long with us.

“He’s a gem of a person.”

The penalty was conceded by the Palace and Australian captain, Mile Jedinak, after wrestling Burnley’s Lukas Jutkiewicz to the ground.

The Australian represented his country in London and Liège, Belgium over the past two weeks alongside other Palace squad players and the international break came in for some criticism from the Palace boss who, despite losing players, was still happy with his sides’ performance.

“It’s been great that we’ve had a bit of time to work together,” said Warnock about the international break.

“But we lost 7-8 players and it’s a disgrace that Yannick Bolasie comes back at 10 o’clock on a Friday morning - surely the internationals weren’t meant to come back two weeks after going away?

“It’s been disappointing to have an international break and we didn’t get chance to work on certain other things with the lads being away, but I thought they were super today - the Burnley’s are going to be our most difficult games.

“If we had got a goal in the first half when we had some very good chances then the game opens up and it’s very different, but the longer you go you always risk doing what we did and then only a good save by Julian got us a point.

“So it was a good point in the end but a bit of a disappointment that we didn’t get three but I felt the same at Newcastle as I was disappointed we didn’t get three and yet we got a late equaliser.”

Another returning former Palace employee was Wilfried Zaha, on loan from Manchester United, and Warnock himself was not even certain that he would be playing.

“I was pleased with his performance,” said Warnock.

“On Thursday he came off from training injured. He was carried off as he had these new-fangled boots; his studs got stuck in the grass and he went over on his ankle - I never thought he’d be anywhere near starting today.

“But all credit to him and Yannick Bolasie too. A couple of times I didn’t even know what Yannick was going to do and I said that to him; I don’t know how defenders mark you because I haven’t got a clue what you’re going to do.

“I thought he was great - he ran at them and that’s what I want him to do, to cause problems.”

Other players away on international duty included Barry Bannan for Scotland and Joe Ledley for Wales, both did not feature against Burnley but for different reasons as Palace named one of their strongest benches in recent seasons.

“I was going to bring Ledley on but he got injured in the dugout,” explained Warnock.

“I don’t know how that happened but he felt his hips and his side and he didn’t feel right so I couldn’t put him on.

“Even when Mile (Jedinak) got a knock late on he knew that Ledley was struggling but he’s a typical Australian and wants to carry on. You could see he wasn’t himself after the knock and it did slow him down a bit but he’ll be alright for next week; he’s made of stern stuff.

“I thought Kevin Doyle and young Jonny Williams did alright (coming off of the bench). Jonny was full of enthusiasm and we tried to be positive with the subs, I thought (Bannan) did well for Scotland but I just fancied Jonny today to play.”

Warnock will now prepare his squad for their next match, away at Everton next Sunday (21 September, 4pm), and will continue to get to know his squad as they search for their first league win of the new season.

“It was lovely today,” he said about returning to Selhurst Park. “I am glad the game is over because we can get on with it now.

“We’ve got to brush up on some things. We tried to win the game best we could but we were probably a little bit too stretched near the end.

“I would rather go and try and win games and I think we’ve got a team that can take points off of most teams in the league.”