Julius OkorieCrystal Palace Chairman, Steve Parish, is yet to come to terms with the snub of Nigeria born England international Eberechi Eze during the just ended transfer window.
The 26-year-old was on the radar of a number of Premier league clubs including Manchester City but none made concrete within the transfer window.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelPalace are however happy to have Eze still in the fold for this season especially after seeing compatriot Michael Olise who was a delight to watch at the last Olympics in France joined Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich for £50m earlier in the window.
Eze has plenty of admirers in the Premier League, with Manchester City said to have tracked him over the summer, but no one made a concrete approach for the 26-year-old.
Eberechi Eze and Michael Olise were two of the Premier League’s most exciting players last season
“I was really worried from a club point of view of losing Michael and Ebbs in the same window and we didn’t have in Ebbs the interest that I thought we would have,” Parish told Sky Sports News.
“I was astounded. I mean, the guy’s just an outstanding footballer, an outstanding person.”
Eze who joined Crystal Palace from Wycombe Wanderers in 2020 has since 27 goals in 115 appearances. One of the highlights of his performance last season was scoring a brace in the 5-0 demolition of Aston Villa.
Eze’s snub was not the only surprise for Parish as he also expected Marc Guehi a stand-out performer for England at Euro 2024, to leave this summer, but the surprise transfer of Joachim Andersen to Fulham and an injury to new-arrival Chadi Riad changed his plans.
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“I don’t think the window worked out exactly the same format that we thought it would,” Parish added. “Maybe we thought at the beginning it’d be more likely that Marc Guehi went and we kept Joachim Andersen.
“We accepted that bid [for Andersen] which then made it very difficult really to sell both of our starting centre-backs in one window.
“That’s not to say it wasn’t still an outside possibility that we got to the right number but then Chadi Riad got injured. That doesn’t look quite as bad as it seems but it still left us very light and really made it impossible for us to consider at that point.”
Newcastle’s pursuit of Guehi became one of the sagas of the summer with Palace standing firm on their valuation after receiving sizeable fees for Olise and Andersen.
Julius Okorie is Chief Sports and Entertainment Correspondent for Prime Business Africa. He began his journalism career with the Champion Newspaper and Sporting Champion and later moved on to Daily Independent and the Nation Newspapers. Okorie joined Prime Business Africa in 2024 bringing on board 20 years of experience in writing investigative news on Sports and Entertainment. His well researched and highly informative articles on Sports Business and general entertainment are followed by a wide range of audience.
