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With the hype building up around Crystal Palace striker Wilfred Zaha and speculation of a January transfer move to the Premier League, Palace manager Dougie Freedman has stated that any Premier League team wishing to prize Zaha away will have to stump up £11m, which is apparently cheap for the England U21 striker.
Well, here are three good reasons why this is not the case and why he is not worth such a substantial amount of money.
- Big Fish In A Small Pond
This reason refers to Zaha playing within a team made up of what look like to be a bunch of Championship players, with the exception of Julian Speroni (possibly). Zaha is undoubtedly a good player, but I believe his talents show through because there is no one else amongst the squad who you would consider Premier League quality. This has been the case in the past with players such as Freddy Eastwood, who again was a big fish in a little pond whilst at Southend and when he moved to Wolves it was clear to see that he was not up to the standard. Much like Eastwood I believe Zaha would struggle with a promotion to the top division at this moment in time, and is therefore not worth £11m.
- Nationality
Zaha is simply being quoted at this price because he is English. It is as simple as that, we have seen it in the pass, when buying an English player who are more than likely going to pay an inflated price. Such was the case with both Jordan Henderson and Stewart Downing. Although a good player at a price of £11m, I find it hard to imagine any Premier League team stumping up such a price for Zaha, when you could buy a ready made striker from abroad for a similar price.
- Firepower
As a striker being touted at £11m you would expect a player to be scoring 20 goals a season, at least double figured. As of yet Zaha has not produced such a thing, granted that Zaha has only recently been used as an out-and-out striker, but with only 10 games of the new season completed we are yet to see if Zaha is capable of scoring the amount of goals that warrant such a high price tag.
With these three reasons in mind, I believe that at this moment in time Zaha is not worth £11m. I am in agreement that he is quality player and will one day be a Premier League, but whether this will be in January, I personally cannot see a Premier League stumping up the £11m price tag to buy Zaha.
