- Jan 20, 2006
- 92
- 458
I’d love Eze but feel he’s probably out of reach financially given the amount of money we still need to spend improving the squad.
What’s so frustrating is that he was such an obvious signing first time around. Buying the very best British or HG youngsters from outside of the PL was essentially how we built the foundation of our teams under Jol, Redknapp and Poch - all of them easily the most enjoyable and successful sides that we’ve had in the modern era. Palace are probably the masters of it now as we’ve seen recently with Wharton as well, but TBH almost every premium signing from the lower leagues has paid off in the last 5-6 years which includes the likes of Gyokeres, Watkins, Bellingham, Bowen, Toney and even Maddison when he signed for Leicester.
Our last comparable signing was Sess, which of course has been a disaster - but we moved 12-18 months too late for him, by which time he was effectively a PL player, his price was inflated, his form and confidence was low following a relegation with Fulham and our team was already in steep decline. I firmly believe if we’d signed him a year earlier it would have been an entirely different story for him and the club; even more so if we’d signed Grealish that same summer as we should have done.
All of which is to say that we need to sign the next Eze and return to a policy that served us so well previously, especially now that we have the right manager, momentum and platform for these kids to shine. Gray, Summerville and Philogene would be obvious targets from the Championship and their total cost combined would probably be in the region of what it would take to buy Eze.
What’s so frustrating is that he was such an obvious signing first time around. Buying the very best British or HG youngsters from outside of the PL was essentially how we built the foundation of our teams under Jol, Redknapp and Poch - all of them easily the most enjoyable and successful sides that we’ve had in the modern era. Palace are probably the masters of it now as we’ve seen recently with Wharton as well, but TBH almost every premium signing from the lower leagues has paid off in the last 5-6 years which includes the likes of Gyokeres, Watkins, Bellingham, Bowen, Toney and even Maddison when he signed for Leicester.
Our last comparable signing was Sess, which of course has been a disaster - but we moved 12-18 months too late for him, by which time he was effectively a PL player, his price was inflated, his form and confidence was low following a relegation with Fulham and our team was already in steep decline. I firmly believe if we’d signed him a year earlier it would have been an entirely different story for him and the club; even more so if we’d signed Grealish that same summer as we should have done.
All of which is to say that we need to sign the next Eze and return to a policy that served us so well previously, especially now that we have the right manager, momentum and platform for these kids to shine. Gray, Summerville and Philogene would be obvious targets from the Championship and their total cost combined would probably be in the region of what it would take to buy Eze.