Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish says he’s “astounded” by the dearth of curiosity in Eberechi Eze throughout the switch window.
Eze has loads of admirers within the Premier League, with Manchester Metropolis stated to have tracked him over the summer season, however nobody made a concrete method for the 26-year-old.
Palace had been relieved to maintain Eze after seeing Bayern Munich signal Michael Olise for £50m earlier within the window.
“I was really worried from a club point of view of losing Michael and Ebbs in the same window and we didn’t have in Ebbs the interest that I thought we would have,” Parish informed Sky Sports activities Information.
“I was astounded. Genuinely astounded. I mean, the guy’s just an outstanding footballer, an outstanding person.”
Why Palace resisted Newcastle’s Guehi bids
Palace did have loads of curiosity in defender Marc Guehi and rejected a number of bids from Newcastle, the most recent of which reached £65m inclusive of add-ons.
Parish was anticipating Guehi, a stand-out performer for England at Euro 2024, to depart this summer season, however the shock switch of Joachim Andersen to Fulham and an harm to new-arrival Chadi Riad modified his plans.
“I don’t think the window worked out exactly the same format that we thought it would,” Parish added. “Maybe we thought at the beginning it’d be more likely that Marc Guehi went and we kept Joachim Andersen.
“We accepted that bid [for Andersen] which then made it very troublesome actually to promote each of our beginning centre-backs in a single window.
“That’s not to say it wasn’t still an outside possibility that we got to the right number but then Chadi Riad got injured. That doesn’t look quite as bad as it seems but it still left us very light and really made it impossible for us to consider at that point.”
Parish on being joyful to promote stars to prime golf equipment
Newcastle’s pursuit of Guehi turned one of many sagas of the summer season with Palace standing agency on their valuation after receiving sizeable charges for Olise and Andersen.
However Parish is conscious that he will be unable to carry on to Guehi – and his different star gamers – for too lengthy.
“We’re proud of the fact that Michael Olise’s gone to Bayern Munich,” stated Parish. “We want to be selling to the top clubs, or to clubs like Newcastle who’ve got great aspirations and have recently been in the Champions League.
“So we’ve got to handle all of these issues. We can’t get actually nice younger expertise to come back to us in the event that they suppose they are going to be caught.”
He added: “We need to be enjoying within the Champions League. The truth is we do not proper now. That is what gamers need to obtain of their profession and we respect that and we respect the truth that generally we will be a pathway to that.”