Crystal Palace’s new signing Alexander Sørloth has impressed his boss Roy Hodgson following his arrival at the club on deadline day, as reported by the club’s official website.
The player will go straight into the squad for his side’s visit of Newcastle United this weekend in the Premier League.
He has also picked up the number 9 shirt following his arrival from Danish side Midtjylland on deadline day.
He has had a fine season out in Denmark, netting nine times in just 19 matches, which was what attracted the interest of the London club.
The Eagles have really struggled to find goals from their strikers this season with Christian Benteke being particularly wasteful, which prompted the need to bring a striker in.
Bakary Sako has also been ruled out in the long-term so the arrival of Sorloth comes at a key time.
Hodgson spoke about the player in his press conference today.
We hope he is going to be very good. We’ve been following him and he has been a target for the whole of the transfer window and our discussions before that, so we were very pleased to persuade FC Midtjylland to let him go.
It wasn’t easy because he’s an important player for them but we are pleased they agreed to that and even more so now after the unfortunate injury to Bakary Sako which meant we were even lighter in that forward area.
He also spoke about the player being the top target for the club in the transfer window.
He was our first choice striker target and will certainly be involved in the squad this weekend.
He is short of match practice because the season in Denmark is very different to ours but he’s fit and took part in the training session today, but obviously in terms of match fitness and games he’s a little bit behind the others.
If you watched the session you wouldn’t be aware that there was a new guy out there, unless you knew who it was and of course he speaks perfect English so he won’t have any problems in that respect.
