SAKA, ANTONY AND 10 PREMIER LEAGUE STARS HEADING TO THEIR FIRST WORLD CUP
If there’s one type of player the Crystal Palace supporters love watching, it’s a tricky, skilful, flamboyant attacker who enjoys making defenders look silly.
That is perhaps why the 2012/13 campaign was so enjoyable, aside from promotion of course.
The Selhurst Park faithful were treated to Yannick Bolasie and Wilfried Zaha mocking the opposition on a weekly basis.
Sadly, after the former moved to Everton, Zaha has endured a lonely time without a fellow trickster in the side. That has led to the Ivorian being doubled, or even tripled up on, and effectively nullified.
However, in the shape of Eberechi Eze, Zaha once again has a fellow mercurial talent on his wavelength – as he put it himself.
Crystal Palace’s official website quote the ex-Manchester United winger as saying: “[Eze] is a quality player, he literally glides through people. It’s nice [having] someone on your wavelength and that’s a tricky player as well because I know half of the stuff he’s going to do so I just position myself to get the ball. It’s been a joy.”
Just by watching the resounding 5-1 win over West Brom, you could see shades of Bolasie in Eze’s game.
The £19.5 million signing from Queens Park Rangers was pulling off body feints, ball rolls, daring dribbles – his whole repertoire of tricks, basically.
It was a joy to watch, and even though he didn’t score, his efforts arguably went a significant way in helping Zaha net twice.
As we’ve seen over recent seasons, it’s easy for the opposition to nullify Zaha by sticking numerous men on him, as the Eagles have lacked another quality player to take advantage of the resulting space.
However, opponents can’t double or triple up on the both of them, which should result in some joyous displays from the hugely entertaining duo.
The south Londoners truly failed to replace Bolasie’s unpredictability after his departure – however, as they say, it’s better late than never.
