Yannick Bolasie’s departure to Everton may have the Eagles flapping but with Benteke, Mandanda, Townsend and Tomkins, Palace have a much stronger squad.
It doesn’t take a tactical genius, or even Alan Pardew for that matter, to realise where Crystal Palace’s shortcomings lay last season. Netting nominally over a goal a game, only Norwich, West Brom and a stricken Aston Villa scored fewer than the Eagles in 2015/16 with Connor Wickham, Fraiser Campbell, Patrick Bamford, Dwight Gayle, Emmanuel Adebayor and Marouane Chamakh netting a grand total of nine goals between them.
The club-record £27 million outlay to bring Christian Benteke to Selhurst Park, then, makes perfect sense even after single dismal season at Anfield battered his reputation and decimated his goal ratio. Yet, this is a man who scored 42 times in just 89 games for a Villa team that finished 15th, 15th and 17th in his three years in the Midlands. Benteke, like Andy Carroll before him, relies heavily upon specialist service not provided under Brendan Rodgers or Jurgen Klopp. For Benteke, the team must play for him and not the other way round.
“Christian says he feeds off crosses. There’s no point going to a club where they don’t cross the ball,” former Villa manager Tim Sherwood said of his talismanic centre-forward in 2015. Palace, then, should be a perfect fit. According to WhoScored, Palace delivered the most crosses per game (26) and the second most long balls (74). Therefore, the failure to land Michy Batshuayi or Saido Berahino may not matter in the long run.
However, what effect the reluctant sale of Yannick Bolasie to Everton has on these promising signs remains to be seen. A £25 million profit after four years of service is not to be sniffed at, but you get the feeling Palace would rather have the man than the money.
There is plenty of pressure, then, on £13 million Andros Townsend, an all-too-rare shining light amid the clouds of St James’ last season. Yet, the former England man has the quality and class to deliver.
The astute signings of James Tomkins and Steve Mandanda, four time Ligue 1 goalkeeper of the year, should provide a sturdy platform to build on a shocking record of just two league wins in 2016, but Pardew may yet regret sanctioning the departures of inspirational captain Mile Jedinak and the lively Gayle to Villa and Newcastle respectively.
Rating: B
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