Alan Pardew will make a late decision on whether Wilfried Zaha is in the right frame of mind to start for Crystal Palace against Bournemouth on Saturday having impressed upon the winger that his ambitions to return to the England setup can be realised at Selhurst Park.
Zaha had requested a meeting with Pardew on Thursday and indicated a desire to move to Tottenham Hotspur, who can offer Champions League football, only for the chairman, Steve Parish, to reject Spurs’ bid, worth an initial £12m, as “ridiculous”. Palace will not entertain any further interest in a player who joined their youth academy at 12 and are actually seeking to strengthen their squad with three new signings, rather than risk depleting it.
The pair spoke again on Friday before training but, while Zaha is keen to play against Bournemouth as Palace seek a first point of the campaign, the manager’s instinct was initially to include him among the substitutes.
“I’ll speak to him and hopefully get him refocused,” said Pardew. “I have some sympathy for the player. I have some sympathy for the playing staff across the Premier League.
“The agents have been on a kind of frenzy in this window, some trying to get involved with players who are not even theirs. Trying to manoeuvre it to get some piece of the pie. It’s something the Football Association or Premier League should look at. They’ve taken all the regulation out of that system and it’s showing a bit at the moment.”
Pardew’s relationship with Zaha, who could technically still represent the country of his birth, Ivory Coast, has been strained at times over the past 18 months, for all that the manager insists the 23-year-old has improved as a player under his stewardship.
“I’ll try and be as fair and honest as I can be with Wilf and try and take his game forward,” he said. “I’ve worked so hard with him this year. I’ve probably spent more time with Wilf and [Yannick] Bolasie than with any other player at the training ground, and I’d like to think there’s been an improvement in both. One I’ve lost [to Everton]. I don’t intend to lose the other one, and the chairman’s feelings have obviously enhanced that.
“At the end of the day, sport is a business, and there are business decisions to be made. But I’ve been at other clubs where the business sometimes comes first. Here I generally feel we try and do it the right way, and we’re trying to help Wilf to become a better player. We think his ambitions to play for England can be realised here, and there’s no reason why that can’t happen.”
