Crystal Palace manager Roy Hodgson may continue to play without a recognised striker this season, even though both Christian Benteke and Connor Wickham has returned to full fitness for the Eagles, the Evening Standard reports.
With both strikers spending the majority of this season on the sidelines and Jordan Ayew being the only centre-forward available to manager Roy Hodgson, the former England manager has opted to play the majority of fixtures with Andros Townsend and Wilfried Zaha down the middle.
Zaha and Townsend both usually play out wide on the wing but the shortage of centre-forwards has seen them take a more central role this season.
The pair could be set to continue their central roles for Palace despite Wickham and Benteke now having returned to full match fitness.
The Zaha-Townsend pairing proved pivotal in helping Palace secure their Premier League status at the back-end of last season and it appears likely that Hodgson will continue to set his side up with that same formation.
The Palace manager said:
We mustn’t forgot last season was a very good season and that was basically down to those two guys [Townsend and Zaha].
Forty four points after the start we had, that was a fantastic achievement and hopefully the fact we have more competition now and players who are capable of being focal points, we will get up to that points total again.
But until such time as that happens, I will be a bit careful about what I say about the current centre-forwards who are vying for position.
You might find towards the end of the season that Wilf and Andros are my favourite two again because I know what they can do.
They can keep us in the league, they can do what they did last year, which was incredible.
