#PremierLeagueStories @CPFC – Is #ConnorWickham going to return a better player after loan + #RoyHodgson frustrated on transfer failings ( and other Crystal Palace stories )
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Connor Wickham
Crystal Palace striker Connor Wickham joined Sheffield Wednesday on a loan deal until the end of the season, as confirmed on the Championship club’s official website last week.The 26-year-old has already had two loan spells with the club and Palace boss Roy Hodgson admitted that he’s happy with his current options in attack, so wanted the striker to go to a team where he is likely to play more.
Roy Hodgson said “We have got Cenk Tosun, Christian Benteke coming back from injury and Jordan Ayew, so that is three centre forwards. So if I had kept him [Wickham] back to keep up the numbers and be covered, if we really are unlucky and get two or three people going down, I might have given him another five or six months without the chance to play. The opportunity came up for him to go to a Championship club, a good Championship club, where I am hoping that he won’t just train with them every day, but he will get into the team and start to do well, and then hopefully, because he is still a Crystal Palace player, we might see the Connor Wickham that people may have seen four years ago. Unfortunately in the time I have been here, I haven’t seen that, because most of his time has been ruined by injury.
Connor Wickham has been plagued with injuries in recent years, having missed 79 matches from the start of the 2016/17 season until the end of 2018/19 campaign.
Roy Hodgson shared insight to why Crystal Palace missed out to West Ham on signing Hull City forward Jarrod Bowen during the transfer window. It’s thought Palace had hoped to take the 23-year-old on an initial loan deal until the end of the season, before making the move permanent in the summer. The Hammers, however, came in and offered Hull an upfront fee believed to be around £20million to take the former Hereford starlet from the KComm Stadium permanently on a five-and-a-half-year deal.
Roy Hodgson said “He was not a player we had discussed to buy in those terms. There was a discussion ten days before the transfer window closed, that Hull might be considering loaning him for a period of time, with an option to buy, and that interested us. But there was never any question that we would go in and buy him outright. So when West Ham went in and bought him outright, that is something they are entitled to do, but it was not something we had considered doing. We definitely wanted a centre forward and a full-back, and I thought until Nathan had his medical that was what we had. We would still have liked one or two more, but nothing came up that appealed to me or that we thought we could be able to buy or bring in, but of course losing Nathan to the complication through his medical, means we have only got Tosun, which is less than we would have liked to have
Missing out on Bowen contributed to a frustrating transfer window for Hodgson and Palace with West Brom’s right back, Nathan Ferguson’s failed medical on deadline day leaving Everton’s Cenk Tosun the only new face through the Selhurst Park gates last month.
Roy Hodgson has helped to open a centre in Croydon which supports people who are sleeping rough or those about to sleep rough. The Crystal Palace manager attended the opening of the Somewhere Safe to Stay Hub, which offers 24-hour support for street homeless people in need of it, 365 days a year. Crystal Palace F.C. supports the homeless community within south London by opening part of Selhurst Park to provide emergency shelter when the air temperature drops below freezing.
Roy Hodgson said: “One can only hope this is the start of something bigger that Croydon Council will be able to do, if you like, to make certain that these very unfortunate people can try to get their lives back on track.”
Hodgson expressed his pride in the club’s efforts after opening the hub and receiving a tour of its facilities.
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