Gary Lineker has taken to Twitter to react after watching footage posted by Crystal Palace, after Cheikhou Kouyate returned to south London.
What’s the story?
Well, the £9.5m man returned to Crystal Palace training today, after jetting off to Cameroon to win the Africa Cup of Nations with Senegal.
To celebrate Kouyate’s achievement, the Eagles arranged a guard of honour for him as he walked out onto the pitches at Copers Cope.
The 32-year-old was then handed a Crystal Palace shirt by Luka Milivojevic with ‘AFCON 2022 Champions’ written on the back.
After watching the footage, Lineker posted the following tweet.
It really was a lovely moment, to say the least.
We just hope Wilfried Zaha and Jordan Ayew – both of whom were knocked out of the tournament with the Ivory Coast and Ghana respectively – weren’t upset by it!
Crystal Palace have missed Cheikhou Kouyate
Since the former West Ham man left for AFCON, Crystal Palace have only won two of their seven games without Kouyate.
Worryingly, both of those have come in the FA Cup against Millwall and Hartlepool, so the Eagles haven’t actually won in the Premier League since their No.8 departed.
Clearly, the south Londoners missed Kouyate greatly.
In our view, Patrick Vieira needs to sign another towering defensive midfielder, as the Frenchman has nobody else like Kouyate.
When he doesn’t play, huge gaps appear in Crystal Palace’s midfield just ahead of the back four – it’s clear for all to see how important Kouyate is.
Hopefully, he has returned in good condition and ready to start against Chelsea on Saturday – the Eagles might have a chance with their AFCON champion back in the side.
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