Oliver Glasner confirms Crystal Palace team news ahead of Brighton derby

Crystal Palace boss Oliver Glasner believes his side are "going in the right direction" ahead of their meeting with rivals Brighton on Sunday.

While Palace are still lingering just above the Premier League relegation zone in 17th spot, the Eagles have lost just one of their last six matches.

They earned a 2-2 draw against reigning champions Manchester City last time out, having beaten Ipswich 1-0 the previous week to pick up only their second league win of the season.

Palace now face a trip to the south coast to face a Brighton side who are seventh in the table, three points off the top four.

Although former Eintracht Frankfurt boss Glasner believes Brighton counterpart Fabian Hurzeler has done a "fantastic job" since joining the Seagulls from St Pauli in the summer, he insisted Sunday's clash is a good opportunity to showcase Palace's improvements in recent weeks.

The Palace manager said: "We never played against each other, but he (Hurzeler) did an amazing job in Germany with St Pauli.

"Also, what I always like with every manager is when you can see a clear style of playing and this is what he implemented in Germany, in St Pauli, and what he implemented here with Brighton.

"He does a fantastic job there and we had a call where we were speaking about differences between Germany and England. But during the game there's no friendship. Everyone wants to win and we will go there and we know what we have to expect.

"We know that we have to perform at our very best level. I still think that we didn't show the best Crystal Palace level at the moment. It's going in the right direction, but we still have to improve in many parts of the game.

"This is the next chance to show it, that we have improved, step-by-step, and are ready for all the games that are coming."

Glasner confirmed that Palace will still be without Adam Wharton but hinted the midfielder could be involved in the coming weeks.

The Austrian said: "He had a little bit of a reaction after the Wednesday and Thursday training sessions. (They were) very intense sessions and he had a bit of a reaction, so we had to reduce his workload, so he won't be available.

"It's looking like nothing serious. Let's see if he's available for the Arsenal game in the week, or maybe at the (next) weekend."

Long-term absentee Matheus Franca remains unavailable, while Joel Ward is expected to miss out due to a calf problem.

"Franca is still in rehab. He's training individually and his progress gets better and better," Glasner added.

"It looks like he will join us in team training, if everything goes in the right direction, early in the new year. For the December games, he's not available.

"We have a bit of a question mark with Joel Ward - he has some issues with his calf - but let's see how it goes, it looks like maybe he's not available.

"All other players are fit."

Additional reporting from PA