The clock struck five across the English footballing world – and Wilfried Zaha stayed a Crystal Palace player.
Perhaps the mood was best summer up by Terence Ford of the Back of the Nest podcast, who said that the Eagles have “strengthened in areas where arguably they needed the least strengthening.”
Another transfer window has come and gone, not bereft of signings, but totally devoid of any meaningful upgrades in positions where they are most needed; namely, attack and the flanks.
Jeffrey Schlupp played the bulk of pre-season in a proto-left-back position alongside Van-Aanholt, making structure and build-up play look sloppy and poorly thought through.
Misery was compounded with the much-lamented departure of Wan-Bissaka. Yet Hodgson saw no possible reason he should sign a full-back, and decided on Gary Cahill, whose Premier League star has long since faded and who has never played anywhere near the touchline.
Tomkins and Sakho have lost but a handful of matches that they’ve played next to each other, yet the manager seems to have found a fault in the defensive formula.
Now the small matter of midfield. One of the team’s strongest components was the forceful combination of club captain Milivojevic coupled with the bullish McArthur and effective Kouyate, with further options on the bench so as to taylor the midfield to each opponent.
Palace did not need more midfielders more than they desperately needed strikers and a decent right-back. James McCarthy, another nondescript English Everton player, joined for £3 million.
It’s like they have a factory for these type of players down on Merseyside. Few fans look forward to him doing anything worthwhile, come the rapidly approaching new season. It’s certain he won’t find a starting place in the side.
Some more, but not much, anticipation came with the signing of Real Betis’ Victor Camarasa on loan with an option to buy. A former Under-21 international, now out of favour for his country.
Despite being the Players’ Player on loan at Cardiff last season, he was relegated with them. Good things could just come from him, and he might even find a starting place, but not many fans’ fingers are crossed for young Victor.
These transfers, combined with Ayew’s permanent move earlier in the window, smack of panic and disorganisation from the board, and from Hodgson himself.
The departure of Wan-Bissaka caused demands for new players to fill his role, but all the ownership at Palace have come up with in return for that £50 million fee is fluff.
Poor results in pre-season, two American owners who have never visited a match and seem totally uninvolved in the running of the club, and the ridiculous decision to charge fans £50 to watch live-streams of the team’s losses in recent friendlies, have generated a foul atmosphere for Eagles fans.
The first fixture against Everton and the new season are within spitting distance, and whilst many clubs of Palace’s ilk have done careful and consummate business this summer, tough ascents are in sight if the Eagles want to retain that ever-elusive, comfortable mid-table finish.
The fans aren’t asking for the world, but even this outcome seems unlikely after nine gruelling months of Premier League football.
In a way, the window has been made worse by the fact that players have been signed, adding wage bills and injury or rehabilitation concerns for the staff at the club.
In this scenario, it would have genuinely been more beneficial if the club had not signed anyone. Expect more crack-filling panic buys in January.
No matter how dreadful the window has been, fans can now breathe a sigh of relief that talisman Wilfried Zaha is staying put in SE25, despite palpitation-inducing Arsenal and Everton interest, he is still a Palace player at least until January.
But this may be it. For too long has a talent that is arguably held back by the quality of the rest of the team been restless with his current club. Zaha’s window for expanding his potential is shrinking fast; he may give up on entirely on carrying the Palace squad this time around.
Fans can’t rely on him to help the team limp through fixtures, hovering precipitously above the relegation zone; that creates dependency and just makes it harder to survive if and when Zaha does actually leave.
This window can be easily summarised in one phrase; new players, same problems. Only time will tell whether the show was directed with more thought than was originally assumed, or perhaps these new cast-members will forget their lines before the curtain’s hardly risen…
