Wilfried Zaha Crystal Palace
Premier League safety has been confirmed with that win
Yes, very pleased. To be honest, I was not really been worried about it. Since we’ve been stuck for a couple of weeks on 38 points it’s still not really occurred to me that we were likely to find ourselves in a relegation scrap But you’re quite right, it is nice to get over that little step, to get over that 40-point mark as well. Delighted today.
You’ve always said it’s no mean feat to stay in the Premier League and Palace have done it for nine seasons now, that’s not a bad run.
No, I agree entirely. And what’s more, we’ve done it with a group of players who have been very faithful to the club, very loyal. The bulk of them were here when I came, and one or two others who weren’t here when I came like [Cheikhou] Kouyate, they came seven or eight months after my arrival, so there’s an awful lot of players really who we’re grateful for, for their incredible efforts over not just the four years where I’ve been in charge of the team but even before that. You know, the club has wanted to invest more, has wanted to help out, but we haven’t been able to do that so far. Let’s hope now that will come about and some of these guys will get a bit of a boost from one or two new faces coming into the club just like we have had a boost from the new face of Eberechi Eze, who I’m sure you will mention.
Yes, a word on Eberechi – a goal and an assist, he was outstanding today.
Yeah, he was very, very good. You know he’s had a difficult period, it’s a bit of a baptism of fire playing three games in a row and it’s Chelsea, Man City and Leicester. Not as easy sometimes to get on the ball and show your silky skills in the same way that he was able to do today where there was a little bit more space in the midfield for him. But we know that that’s the quality he possesses, we constantly preach to him that we want to see that quality and that we’ll back him up and we’re not going to criticise him if he tries it and it doesn’t come off. I thought that today the team benefited in particular from that, because he was bold when he got the ball, he drove forward with the ball which we know he can do, he stayed on the ball – he wasn’t looking to release it as soon as he got it, and of course he got his reward with the assist and the goal. And we got our rewards for his good play.
Have you seen enough of him this season to convince you that he can improve and become the player that you want and expect him to be?
Oh yes. He’s done well enough already, as far as I’m concerned. I think if you ask me if I’m happy with Eberechi Eze this season, of course I’d say ‘absolutely’. He’s done well for us. We’re sitting on 41 points and he’s more than played his part in getting to that stage. But it is his first season coming from the Championship and you expect to need a bit of time to get fully adjusted to play at this level. Especially with the vast gulf in the league between the top two or possibly three teams in the league and the teams nearer the bottom of the table. Because there is a gulf, unfortunately, we can’t deny it and it doesn’t get smaller every year, that gulf, partly because those clubs continually buy very, very good players and unfortunately you can’t anymore beat them by your organisation or work rate because their organisation or work rate is every bit as good as yours.
Is it too early to say that England should look to try and get Eze committed to the senior side? And do you think he will take pressure off Wilfried Zaha if he continues with performances like these?
I don’t know about taking the pressure off Wilf Zaha, I hope he puts the pressure on Wilf Zaha to raise his level of performance to the sort of level that we saw from Eze today, so that would interest me more than contemplating whether or not he’s going to take pressure off Wilf. When it comes to nationality, I’ve got to be honest with you: I’ve never given it a thought. I suppose that every black player from South London will have roots somewhere. But at the same time he’s been playing regularly for the England Under-21s and I’ve just automatically assumed that that’s where he sees his career in England and he’ll keep fighting for a spot
Do you expect there to be any interest this summer in Eberechi Eze?
Oh I’d not really thought about that either. These are all good questions, but I mean what occurs to me is that we’ve only just signed him. It was quite an investment for our club to pay £15million and £5million in add-ons, that’s quite a big investment for us. I wasn’t contemplating that it would be an investment that would last one season then he would move somewhere else. So I hope that’s not the case And I’m pretty sure the club will work very, very hard to make certain that any interest in him will be warded off, because we brought him into the football club to play for us and make us better, we didn’t bring him into the club in order to make some small profit on one transfer at the end of the first season.
