Chris Grierson saw a thing or two at Crystal Palace during his time working for the Eagles.
The Head of Video and Social Media for Crystal Palace from 2021 to 2024 did a fantastic job at Selhurst Park – creating a range of engaging content, including the superb When Eagles Dare documentary, which focused on our promotion from the Championship back in the 2012/13 campaign.
Grierson has now sat down to speak to the Winging It podcast about his time at Crystal Palace – where he shared an interesting anecdote regarding Wilfried Zaha.
Chris Grierson says Wilfried Zaha refused to do media when aiming to leave
It was a well documented fact that the Ivory Coast international wanted to leave Crystal Palace back in 2019 when Arsenal came calling – even handing in a transfer request, which Steve Parish rejected.
However – aside from that – we have never really been given much insight regarding how Zaha behaved during that period, although Grierson has now shared that the man from Abidjan refused to do any media duties as he aimed to leave.
He told Winging It: “Wilf was in a dreadful mood that day. We did it (the interview) at the training ground. He was like, what is this? It was in a period where he kind of wanted to leave, so he wasn’t really doing any media, and he was like, I’ll do this because I respect you, but I don’t want to be doing it.”
“So, we just had an argument with that and then the cameras rolled, and it was the most incredible interview.”
It certainly was incredible – as you can see below.
Whatever you think about Zaha’s behaviour during that period, you can tell just how much Crystal Palace means to him through the emotion in his voice in this interview.
How Wilfried Zaha is getting on after Crystal Palace tried to bring him back
Crystal Palace tried to sign Zaha from Galatasaray during the summer transfer window – although a return could not happen due to tax reasons, and he eventually sealed a loan move to John Textor’s Lyon.
Speaking about the American, Textor is close to selling his 45% stake to Zechariah Janjua and Navshir Jaffer in a £230m deal.
In regards to Zaha, it has been a difficult season for the 32-year-old so far, having made just one start in Ligue 1 at the time of writing.
The Crystal Palace academy graduate has also played just 41 minutes of UEFA Europa League action.
Hopefully, Zaha can cement himself at Lyon, as it is a shame to see such a talent fade out like this.
