Wilfried Zaha will grace the Old Trafford pitch tonight for a big European night, but perhaps a decade later than he envisaged. The winger will be in the Galatasaray ranks for the Champions League clash against Manchester United having moved to Turkey this summer. It is a little more than 10 years since he signed for the Reds as a huge prospect with bags of potential, but the move didn’t work out on or off the pitch. It could and perhaps should have been very different. His move to United came after Ferguson’s son Darren tipped off his old man, while Bobby Charlton joined Fergie in the initial conversations. At the time United were leading lights at home and abroad, but Zaha’s summer switch to Manchester coincided with a fall from grace. Zaha should have had the skills and ability to deliver the front-foot football United fans desire. Ferguson had told him he wanted to see him racing down the wing in the way Ryan Giggs did for many a year.
Wilfried Zaha said “Sir Alex Ferguson, who I’ve watched for years, tells me he wants me to be part of his team. It was all just surreal. He only really said he wants me to play for Man United, I’d play out on the wing, there’s other young players there like [Danny] Welbeck and [Tom] Cleverley that I’d get on with, and obviously when you come at first don’t expect to play straight away, you have to earn that position. That’s all he said really, I was fine with it. I was thinking, ‘I’m good with anything, the opportunity is all I need’.”
But Moyes and Van Gaal were never convinced and never really gave Zaha time to convince. The player himself has spoken of his struggles off the pitch, as a 20-year-old moving away from home for the first time.
Wilfried Zaha said “I was in a very bad place,”
Under Ferguson, perhaps that path would have been smoother and his personality and talent honed – think Cristiano Ronaldo – but with the United great stepping away, Zaha floundered instead of flourishing.
Wilfried Zaha said “When I usually speak about Man United I wouldn’t say I regret anything but that is one thing I do regret because I didn’t push my personality. Because I’d never moved from Croydon, I’d never went anywhere, all of the sudden I’m in Manchester, I’m feeling homesick at times, I did not put how I play and my personality across at all. I was literally a shadow of myself. I can say maybe it came at the wrong time, I was not mature enough. But at the same time, the way the manager wanted me to play, I wanted him to trust me, so then I kind of lost my identity as well because I stopped doing skills, and then it’s like, ‘who am I if I don’t do skills’. It’s a bit of both really, I’m a bit on the fence with that.”
Zaha opted to join Cardiff City on loan under future United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. He struggled to make an impression and the Bluebirds were relegated. That summer came the final straw at Old Trafford.
Wilfried Zaha said “I went back to United, it was Van Gaal by then. And when he came back off the World Cup where he played Robin van Persie and [Arjen] Robben up front, so basically, he gave me two options: You’re either a wing-back or a striker. Those positions are positions I’ve never played before. So it’s like I’m being set up to fail here. This is off of coming back from David Moyes, and I’m shattered from just how everything worked out. I go back and I get that, either a striker or a wingback. I can’t do either.”
Zaha returned to Palace and became an Eagles mainstay in the Premier League, inspiring the team and becoming a Selhurst Park legend. He netted twice at Old Trafford in a 3-1 win in 2020 and tonight will hope for his first Champions League start for Galatasaray having come off the bench in their opening group game against FC Copenhagen.
