Roy Hodgson’s Crystal Palace are keen to finally snap up Fiorentina attacker Christian Kouame in a potential £20 million deal, The Sun reports.
This would be a transfer a long time in the making.
It’s no secret that Kouame came so close to joining the Premier League outfit in 2019 after all – only for an ill-timed injury to scupper his hopes of a move to the English capital.
“We had a £10m bid accepted for Kouame,” Palace owner Steve Parish told CPFC TV earlier this year. “Unfortunately, he had a cruciate injury a week after.”
Fiorentina director Daniele Prade backed up Parish’s claims, while Kouame himself took a more spiritual view of the situation. In his eyes, he simply ‘wasn’t destined’ to end up in London.
But, despite a rather unimpressive start to the season with Fiorentina, The Sun believes that the move is back on.
Crystal Palace will need to pay £20 million if they want to finally land the Ivory Coast international in January – though it remains to be seen whether The Eagles are willing to double the bid they made back in 2019 for an attacker who has scored just once in 11 Serie A matches this season.
A 6ft 1ins centre-forward who can also play out wide, Kouame may be part of a succession plan at Crystal Palace.
The Londoners have been making a concerted effort to reduce the age of one of the Premier League’s oldest squads.
Kouame could potentially replace the 30-year-old Christian Benteke when the Belgian’s contract expires at the end of the season.
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