Crystal Palace have confirmed the loan signing of Everton striker Cenk Tosun ahead of the game against Arsenal.
The Everton striker has been strongly linked with Palace in the past, with the Eagles reportedly coming close to signing the Turkish forward prior to his move to the Toffees.
But Palace have now finally got their man, with the Eagles confirming the deal this afternoon prior to manager Roy Hodgson's pre-match press conference ahead of the game against Arsenal.
And speaking at his , Hodgson has spoken of his delight at getting the deal done.
He said: "As long ago as two years ago, Cenk’s name came up and there was a serious interest in us signing him, we faced competition from Everton and they won the race for his signature.
"It is nice to get a second bite of the cherry and we know what qualities he is going to bring. He is a goalscorer, a hard-working goalscorer. The reason we are signing him and hoping to see a lot from him is in the area in scoring goals, which we have needed for a while now.
"He is in contention to be in the squad. And we need that with eight players unavailable, which will boost everybody, including the fans."
Hodgson reinforced that signing Tosu is to make an impact on the first team.
He said; "This is about adding competition. None of the players we sign will be there to pad out the squad, if I need to do that it will be with some of the U23 players. Anyone we bring in I would want to be a serious contender for a first team place.
"We are bringing him here to get the best out of his game, Everton obviously feel he has more chance of getting into our team, and they, like ourselves, will hope he does well here to increase his value. We will have to see what that means."
