Crystal Palace are to lodge an improved bid of around £4.5m for Neil Taylor at Swansea City, with the Welsh club having lined up Norwich’s Martin Olsson as a potential replacement.
Palace have targeted the signing of a left-back this month having utilised Joel Ward and Martin Kelly – both natural right-backs – in the role to date this term. The London club signed Zeki Fryers from Tottenham Hotspur on transfer deadline day in September in the hope he might make the position his own, but he has failed to impress and has since been loaned to Rotherham United in the Championship.
An initial offer for Taylor of around £3m was rejected last week, but Palace’s hopes of securing a deal for the 25-year-old, who is contracted through to 2016 at the Liberty stadium, appear to have been bolstered by Swansea’s subsequent move for Olsson. Norwich are considering their £4m offer for the Sweden international, lodged over the weekend, with the former Blackburn Rovers defender keen to return to the topflight.
Palace retain an interest in Swansea’s France forward, Bafétimbi Gomis, who indicated on Sunday that he could still pursue a move away from Wales despite appearing to be Garry Monk’s first-choice striker following Wilfried Bony’s sale to Manchester City. The 29-year-old, a free transfer arrival from Lyon last summer, suggested he felt let down to have played second fiddle to Bony since arriving in the Premier League, despite starting the team’s last four games and with Ivorian now departed for the champions.
“When Bony was here, it was planned I should play a certain number of games, that wasn’t the case,” said Gomis in an interview conducted by Canal Plus on Sunday. “Today, I ask myself many questions. I need time to think. I have been approached by clubs. I don’t know what will happen. Me leaving? It is possible.
“It is planned that my entourage will meet with Swansea’s representatives. Then I will have a discussion with my representatives to find the best solution. I want to stay abroad. It is true that I have had not a bad amount of approaches from clubs. I have the ambition to play a certain number of matches. I need time to reflect because what was said was not respected. At my age, it is difficult to spend my time sitting on the bench.”
