Crystal Palace’s Wilfried Zaha has been the subject of a £55m offer from Everton, according to Sky Sports News.
Sky Sports News ‘understands’ that the offer does not include any Everton players and is a cash-only deal, despite previous reports (The Telegraph) suggesting that Cenk Tosun would be used to persuade Palace to part with Zaha.
According to the report, Zaha would rather stay in London, but would still be willing to move from the capital to join a bigger club.
Zaha has been linked with Arsenal for much of this window and the Emirates looked the most likely destination for the winger, however, the chances of that now happening look incredibly slim with the Gunners allegedly agreeing a club-record fee of £72million (The Independent) for Lille winger Nicolas Pepe, 24.
Everton are clearly serious about signing Wilfried Zaha, after making a reported initial bid of £55m for the Ivory Coast international. This far surpasses Arsenal’s first offer for the winger of £40million (Sky Sports), however, Everton have a much tougher ask than the North London club of luring the winger from Selhurst Park.
Palace have their asking price set at £80m (Evening Standard), so Everton will have to get a lot closer to that sum or include some of their own players as part of the deal.
Even if Palace’s value is met, then it becomes a question of would Wilfried Zaha leave Crystal Palace? He has established himself as one of the better players out of the top six and now wants to prove himself at a European level, as revealed in an interview with the Daily Mail – but with Everton not in Europe, would there be any point?
He has been a consistent threat and one of the league’s most exciting players over the past few seasons but has been given the opportunity to impress by the South London club. Since he rejoined Palace in the 2014/15 season, he has recorded the highest number of attempted dribbles (1,296), second-highest amount of completed dribbles and duels won (588, 1299), the fifth-highest amount of touches in the opposition box (598), the second-most fouls won (437) and the most amount of penalties won (15), according to stats from within this Sky Sports article.
His importance for Palace is unequivocal; his 10 league goals, five assists and six penalties won (WhoScored) were vital for Palace recording their highest ever points tally in the Premier League last season.
It’s a move which is hard to see happening, even though it seems like Zaha wants to leave the club.
Indeed, there could potentially be uproar from Palace fans if Zaha was to join Everton, both against Parish and the player. Firstly, Parish would come under criticism for allowing him to leave so soon before the start of the season and Zaha would for only taking a sideways move despite claiming he wanted to play in the Champions League.
Would Zaha tarnish his legacy by moving to Everton? Join the discussion by commenting below…
