Crystal Palace fans have started to speculate about Wilfried Zaha on social media after Brennan Johnson chose to give up the No.11 shirt.
The Wales international has now taken the No.23 shirt which was vacated by Jaydee Canvot – who has snatched the No.6 after Marc Guehi left for Manchester City in January.
Considering Johnson has never previously worn the No.23 shirt in his career, some have speculated that this decision means Zaha might be returning and wants the No.11 strip he made iconic during his second spell at Selhurst Park.
The man born in Abidjan recently fuelled these rumours himself by appearing to post footage of himself training back at Crystal Palace’s Copers Cope.
However, we highly doubt the Ivory Coast international will be returning to Selhurst Park if Pierre Sage has a say in the matter.
Would YOU have Wilfried Zaha back? 🤔
The Ivorian is now a free agent… 👀
Pierre Sage’s beef with Wilfried Zaha at Lyon suggests Crystal Palace reunion is unlikely
Some Crystal Palace fans may not be aware that Sage has already worked with Zaha while the Ivorian was on loan at Lyon from Galatasaray in the 2024/25 campaign.
The Frenchman gave the Crystal Palace academy graduate his full Ligue 1 debut in September 2024 in a clash against Toulouse.
It went well as Zaha provided an assist in his 52 minutes of action and Lyon recorded a 2-1 win, but then the relationship between Sage and the Crystal Palace legend soured.
After Zaha and Gift Orban were left out of the squad for the next Ligue 1 encounter – a clash against Nantes – Sage questioned the pair’s standards as it was alleged that they refused to partake in a fitness session.
The 47-year-old said: “For players who play less, there is compensatory work scheduled on match day. What I tell the players is that when they aren’t playing, it’s difficult for me to evaluate them as footballers, so I evaluate them on other things. If those things are not up to the standard expected of the professional you should be, then you first need to get yourselves up to that standard.”
Zaha then added fuel to the fire by posting an Instagram message which read: “Do I look like I care?”
Sage then confirmed a chat had taken place between himself and the 33-year-old, saying: “I had a good discussion with him last week about the problems we encountered. The idea isn’t to punish simply for the sake of punishing.
“He needs to become aware of what we expect from him at the club. I told him that we signed Wilfried Zaha, so we’d like to have Wilfried Zaha. At the moment, it has nothing to do with his ability as a player, but rather with his ability to function within the team.”
However, no progress was ever made.
Zaha was left out of the squad nine times in Ligue 1 while at Lyon under Sage in total across 16 games, before eventually walking away from France in January – cutting his loan spell short to join Charlotte FC in Major League Soccer.
In this respect, it would be a major shock if Sage agreed to bring Zaha back to Crystal Palace.
Initial thoughts on Pierre Sage? 🤔
He can boast a 67.5% win ratio from 40 games at RC Lens 😍
At this moment in time, our best guess is that the No.11 shirt will go back to Matheus Franca – who was spotted without a number in Sage’s first training session after Johnson had initially taken his No.11 in January.
