Crystal Palace come into 2019/20 season in an interesting position – they’ve managed to hold onto Wilfried Zaha, but they’ve lost the likes of Aaron Wan Bissaka. They also haven’t made many signings, could that spell trouble for the Eagles? Next on our list of Premier League previews is Roy Hodgson and his Palace side.
State of play
As I mentioned before, the major issue when you look at Crystal Palace this summer is their sheer inactivity in the transfer window. As of today, they’ve brought in just three new signings, Jordan Ayew from Swansea who made his loan deal permanent, experienced stopper Stephen Henderson, a free transfer from Nottingham Forest and Gary Cahill from Chelsea.
The other major story of the summer, which could explain why the hierarchy have been so distracted, is the ongoing Wilf Zaha saga. The Ivorian winger has asked to leave the club, with Arsenal being his preferred destination – but after a failed bid, Arsenal turned to Lille starlet Nicolas Pepe who signed last week.
So where does that leave Zaha? Everton have been linked too, but with their signing of Moise Kean, that also seems unlikely now. It looks as though Zaha will be staying at Selhurst Park – to be honest, unless they’re going to do some business between now and Thursday, Palace can’t afford to lose him.
Pre-season hasn’t done much to lighten the mood around the club either, with Palace picking up just one win from their seven games. They also drew one game and lost the other five – most noticeably, they were battered 6-2 by Barnet and then they ended their pre-season with a 4-0 hammering at home to Hertha Berlin.
Crystal Palace Signing of the summer
So as you may have gathered, this is usually the part of the preview where I write about my favourite signing of the summer. Palace have made just three signings and I’m not really keen on any of them.
Kieran’s verdict
I don’t see Palace getting relegated this season, mostly on the premise that there are most definitely three worse teams than them. As long as they keep hold of Zaha, and he doesn’t do some sort of petulant strike because he didn’t get his way, they’ll be fine… just about.
They won’t be challenging for the top half, but they should just about keep their Premier League status. I see them finishing somewhere between 15th and 18th, roughly 5-8 points above the relegation zone.
*All transfer information taken from: https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/crystal-palace/transfers/verein/873
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