According to a recent report from The Daily Mirror, Crystal Palace are one of a few teams keeping an eye on striker Edin Dzeko. The 32-year-old currently plays his football at Serie A giants Roma and has done so since leaving Manchester City back in 2016, with the forward certainly producing the goods in the past couple of years.

Yet reports suggest that the Bosnia and Herzegovina international is open to a return to the Premier League in the future, thus prompting reported interest from Roy Hodgson’s Palace, with the Eagles chief certainly needing to get a deal done for the £22.5 million-rated ace (as per Transfermarkt) as he’d be the perfect upgrade for the awful Christian Benteke.

The Breakdown

Ultimately, while one cannot knock Benteke’s overall decent record in the Premier League, he has looked a shadow of the player that starred at Aston Villa and indeed at Palace in his first season in recent times, with the Belgium international seriously struggling for form and confidence.

In fact, last term was the first time since his move to English football with Villa back in 2012 in which the 27-year-old has failed to score at least nine Premier League goals in one campaign, mustering just three for Hodgson’s side as they finished 11th in the table.

Interestingly, even Hodgson was seemingly struggling to see the worth of starting the striker by opting for the likes of Wilfried Zaha and Andros Townsend to lead the line at the rear end of last season, and things haven’t improved for Benteke this time round either in failing to net in four Premier League appearances.

Thus, it’s pretty clear that Palace are in need of striking reinforcements come January, and they could a lot worse than lure Dzeko to Selhurst Park, who does everything Benteke does just that little bit better.

The 32-year-old has scored an impressive 78 goals in 148 appearances for Roma since his move from City initially on loan in 2015 but then permanently a year later, 39 goals of which coming in only 51 games back in the 2016/17 season as the Italian giants finished second in Serie A.

And in backing that up with 24 goals in all competitions last time round, which thus played a key part in helping Roma reach the semi-finals of the Champions League, it’s clear that the Bosnian star has more than proven his worth in the Italian capital, but he also has proven pedigree in England having starred at City, bagging 72 goals in 189 games for the Citizens.

Thus, Hodgson will be well aware that Dzeko is suited to the Premier League and can produce the goods in the top-flight, and being aerially strong and dominant alongside being able to bully defenders with his power and strength suggests that he is of similar mould to Benteke, but just slightly better in almost all departments.

As such, with Benteke really struggling for the Eagles, Hodgson needs some striking inspiration from somewhere, with Dzeko the man to provide him with that.

Palace fans… what do you think? Let us know!