The Eagles' 2023/24 competitive season gets underway on Saturday (12th August, 15:00 BST) at Bramall Lane, as Palace take on newly-promoted Sheffield United.
And Ward – recently appointed permanent skipper of the side – has high ambitions for the new campaign ahead.
“Every season you want to push the limits,” he confirmed. “For us, we want to make sure we try to better last season.
“We’ve got everything in our armoury to do so, and I know the management and the club have that vision of wanting to break into that top ten. There’s no reason we can’t do that if we continue on the path we want to go on.
“We want to emulate the form we had at the back end of last season. In the Premier League you know you’re going to go through spells where maybe results don’t necessarily go your way or times are hard, but that’s the beauty of the Premier League: nothing’s a given.
“We want to make sure we hit the ground running and continue the form we had towards the back end of the season. If we do that, we’ve got a great opportunity.”
