According to reports, Crystal Palace attempted to acquire a true superstar to replace Wilfried Zaha this summer.
While the south Londoners kept the most of their finest assets last summer, including Michael Olise, Eberechi Eze, and Marc Guehi, club star Wilfried Zaha rejected down a rumoured club-record £200,000-per-week offer to join Turkish club Galatasaray.
Palace recruited Brazilian 19-year-old Matheus França in place of Zaha, a product of the Eagles’ academy who went on to become the club’s record Premier League scorer.
However, the club was also interested in a number of other possibilities to help the Brazilian teenager.
One of the most bizarre connections was with Chelsea great Eden Hazard, who had recently finished a disastrous term at Real Madrid. Of course, substantial portions of the Palace fandom disregarded the rumour at the time.
Despite speculation that Hazard might retire at the age of 32, Palace manager Dean Jones stated that the club’s interest in the Belgian superstar was genuine.
“There have been some strong offers for him, including one from Crystal Palace to play again in the Premier League, but the motivation for him to make a comeback does not appear to be there.”
“It’s been a long time since he’s played; he’d have to work extremely hard to get back to top condition, which means playing top-level games could take some time.”
‘He’s a free agent, so teams who have expressed interest haven’t closed the door, but this is a guy who is incredibly self-assured, is unaffected by outside noise or behaviour, and will make the decision entirely on his own terms.”
This week, while addressing his next steps following his departure from Real Madrid,
