There seems to be a recurring theme in young Kwesi Appiah’s short career and that is constantly coming out of obscurity to be a short-term success. The big question we all have on our lips as Palace fans is “can Appiah be a long-term success for Palace?”
Having beaten off Blackpool to sign this young goal scoring machine from Margate, I have to admit I was a little bit excited about the prospect of Appiah. As Palace fans, we tend to look back at the greatest ever example of singing a player from Non-League and them becoming a success in Ian Wright. In this day and age that kind of fairy tale story doesn’t seem to happen anymore with the gap between the Football League and Non-League only getting bigger.
Dougie Freedman who was at Selhurst Park when we signed Appiah was notorious for giving young players a chance but four years down the line, we have this young lad not even getting a look in an constantly being sent out on loan. It is a shame not to see Kwesi getting a chance here at Palace and whenever he was introduced it tended to be out wide with no time to spare. Unfortunately at this point we are all thinking the same – time is up for Kwesi at Palace but what a turnaround his career looks like it could have just had.
Appiah was on loan at League 2 Cambridge when the most unlikely of international call-ups occurred, as he was called into the provisional Ghana squad for the African Cup of Nations. I think the call up was as big of a surprise to Appiah as it was to the Ghanaians and Palace fans. After an extremely impressive debut on the big stage for Appiah it looks like it could have revived his Palace career.
The former Peterborough striker signed a new two-year deal with Palace this month and will be relishing the chance to get a pre-season under his belt and the opportunity to impress Alan Pardew. Appiah has been unlucky that he wasn’t included in the 25-man squad in January as a couple of week’s back he would have found himself on the bench at the very least. It is great to see Pards give Kwesi a new contract and that will give him real confidence to push on, and you never know it could be a masterstroke. It would have been silly just to release him at the conclusion of his deal, it is a calculated and cost effective risk for Palace and if It doesn’t work out for Appiah in the red and blue, being an international striker will give him decent sell on value.
Being 24, it does seem reasonably late to finally start performing but I guess in football we expect too much too soon and we all know first hand that some players mature later than others. An example of that is Glenn Murray – he grafted his way through the lower leagues; now he has finally got his chance and looks extremely comfortable in the Premier League aged 31. Appiah now truly has a career-defining test while on loan at Reading, if he can impress there he could seriously be looking at playing Premier League football with Palace next season.
From the likes of Brackley Town, Thurrock and Margate in five years, playing in the top flight would be an amazing achievement and one we are all hoping he can pull off.
