Alan Pardew has admitted Yannick Bolasie can be “undefendable” when at the top of his game but is confident his Crystal Palace side will find a way of negating their former team-mate in Friday night’s trip to Everton.
Bolasie, who had cost Palace around £300,000 from Bristol City in 2012, played a significant part in the south London club establishing itself in the Premier League over the past three years before departing for Goodison Park this summer in a deal that could be worth £30m. The 27-year-old will confront his former team-mates on Merseyside with Palace, who are likely still to be without the hamstrung Scott Dann, braced for a difficult evening.
“I love Yala but I just hope he doesn’t have one of his super-duper games that he can have,” Pardew said. “Of course he’ll be looking to impress but he has nothing to prove to us or our fans. Our fans still love him. I suppose we do know everything about him. On his day he can be undefendable at times and he goes from nought to five yards as fast as any player I have ever worked with. But that is not to say we can’t deal with him. We hope to.”
The Everton manager, Ronald Koeman, who will be without the injured Leighton Baines, will stress to Bolasie not to allow the occasion to influence his approach. “Yannick is always very committed to the team, to his team‑mates, and working hard,” he said. “For him it’s a special game to play against his old team but [I will tell him to] do his job; don’t do things differently. That’s my advice to Yannick. We knew what type of player he is, that is why we signed the player. He can create a lot of problems to opponents with his pace and physicality, which brings something different to the team.”
Dann, who hurt a hamstring in Palace’s EFL Cup defeat at Southampton earlier this month, underwent a series of fitness tests on Thursday but may not be risked at Everton. Wilfried Zaha has recovered from his own hamstring problem while Palace, unbeaten on their last three trips to Goodison Park, hope to have Loïc Rémy, their loanee from Chelsea, fit and available by the beginning of December after he tore a thigh muscle in training.
