Wilfried Zaha would be superb in a bigger team
Graeme Souness
Crystal Palace’s unsettled forward may have to wait for the big-money move that could make him a superstar
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Wilfried Zaha is good enough to play for Europe’s elite — Barcelona, Bayern Munich or Real Madrid — as well as any of the Premier League’s top clubs. That’s how highly I rate him.
He is also good enough, in today’s market, to justify the £80m transfer fee that Crystal Palace want for him. The hardest place to play is up front, and if defenders such as Harry Maguire are moving for £80m, Palace are entitled to ask the same for an attacker who is their main man by a mile.
It might surprise a few people who have Zaha down as a diver, but I would also describe him as a warrior winger because the more you show a physical attitude towards him, the more he will come right back at you. He likes that and sees it as a personal challenge. His situation at Palace has some similarities with mine at Middlesbrough before I joined Liverpool in January 1978. I threatened to down tools to get my move because I had a chance to join a club who had just won the European Cup for the first time.
Local hero: Zaha has prospered since his return to Crystal Palace from Manchester UnitedRICHARD PELHAM
Middlesbrough were not happy but received a fee of £352,000, which at the time was a record between two English clubs. John Neal, my manager at Middlesbrough, was a really nice man who had been around the block, much like Roy Hodgson has, but deep down I’m sure he knew why I wanted to leave. As a player in that situation, you’re thinking: “This might be my one chance to get this big move.” Yet for Zaha, provided he doesn’t get a bad injury, it will still be there for him next year.
With respect to Palace’s players, attackers of his talent need to be supplied quality — the ball arriving quicker and more accurately, with the correct pace on it. In a good team, one that dominates games, he would be sensational.
I criticised Paul Pogba here last Sunday for being in a dressing room with his Manchester United teammates and not wanting to be part of the group going into the new season. That’s also true of Zaha, yet that is where the comparison ends because for someone at Crystal Palace the chance to join Arsenal, one of England’s bigger clubs, is an obvious upgrade.
To his credit, Zaha does the hard yards going back towards his own goal at Palace and is also expected to be the difference when he gets into the attacking third. He is at his best as a wide player running at people. One on one, he takes some stopping because he has electric pace and is so aggressive. He can be erratic, but in a good team, getting the ball fed to him accurately and early, he’d be a real asset and potentially the difference in big games.
When Palace beat Leicester 1-0 at Selhurst Park last December, it ended a run of 13 straight league defeats without Zaha for them dating back to a 3-2 win against Sunderland in September 2016. That shows how important he is to them. They’re a very different team without him and it’s not just his goals — because he is not a prolific goalscorer — but his assists as well. He is a proper handful and you wouldn’t want to play against him.
That’s why Roy will use all his experience as a manager to get the best out of Zaha while he is still a Palace player. They might have to sit him down and say: “We’ll agree a price, if somebody meets it next summer or at Christmas [although Roy will want him for the season] you can go.” If I was Zaha’s agent, that’s what I would be pushing for, too.
Too much, too soon: Zaha struggled during his time at Old TraffordJAMIE MCDONALD
If I’m Roy Hodgson, I’m appealing to the player’s professionalism and reminding him the club has been good for him — not in terms of what they’re paying him, but how they have nurtured him. I’d say: “This is where it started for you, you went away and came back, but they love you here, give it another year and see where we are in 12 months and everything’s forgotten.”
I’d hope for his sake and his own professional pride that when he looks back on his career when it has finished, he does the right thing now because he is much loved at that club and rightly so. You could say it has suited him being a big fish in a small pond, but you would also hope there’s a niggle in the boy to challenge himself and say, “I didn’t do myself justice at a big club the last time, so I’ve got to get out there again and prove to all my doubters I can.”
I am not convinced Aaron Wan-Bissaka’s £50m move to Manchester United this summer unsettled Zaha — perhaps it did, if they were mates or Zaha’s wondering where the club is going if it’s selling its best young players. His own £10m move to United in 2013, when Alex Ferguson signed him shortly before stepping down, might have been too much, too soon, when there was also a change of manager to David Moyes to factor in.
I still see Zaha ending up at a big club again, whether it’s this Christmas or next summer. He might have to accept it’s not this summer, although it is only in England that the transfer window is shut. It is open in France, Germany, Italy and Spain until September 2.
It’s second-guessing the situation, but Bayern Munich are looking for a winger, given that Leroy Sane has damaged his cruciate ligaments. If I was still playing, Bayern, Barcelona and Real Madrid are the only clubs I’d consider leaving the Premier League for — and Zaha’s good enough to play for all of them.
