Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish says he’s “astounded” by the shortage of curiosity in Eberechi Eze through the switch window.
Eze has loads of admirers within the Premier League, with Manchester Metropolis mentioned to have tracked him over the summer time, however nobody made a concrete strategy for the 26-year-old.
Palace have been relieved to maintain Eze after seeing Bayern Munich signal Michael Olise for £50m earlier within the window.
“I was really worried from a club point of view of losing Michael and Ebbs in the same window and we didn’t have in Ebbs the interest that I thought we would have,” Parish informed Sky Sports activities Information.
“I was astounded. Genuinely astounded. I mean, the guy’s just an outstanding footballer, an outstanding person.”
Why Palace resisted Newcastle’s Guehi bids
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Clinton Morrison says Crystal Palace’s greatest piece of enterprise was maintaining Marc Guehi – regardless of the signing of Eddie Nketiah
Palace did have loads of curiosity in defender Marc Guehi and rejected a number of bids from Newcastle, the newest of which reached £65m inclusive of add-ons.
Parish was anticipating Guehi, a stand-out performer for England at Euro 2024, to depart this summer time, however the shock switch of Joachim Andersen to Fulham and an damage to new-arrival Chadi Riad modified his plans.
“I don’t think the window worked out exactly the same format that we thought it would,” Parish added. “Maybe we thought at the beginning it’d be more likely that Marc Guehi went and we kept Joachim Andersen.
“We accepted that bid [for Andersen] which then made it very troublesome actually to promote each of our beginning centre-backs in a single window.
“That’s not to say it wasn’t still an outside possibility that we got to the right number but then Chadi Riad got injured. That doesn’t look quite as bad as it seems but it still left us very light and really made it impossible for us to consider at that point.”
Parish on being pleased to promote stars to prime golf equipment
Eberechi Eze and Michael Olise have been two of the Premier League’s most enjoyable gamers final season
Newcastle’s pursuit of Guehi grew to become one of many sagas of the summer time with Palace standing agency on their valuation after receiving sizeable charges for Olise and Andersen.
However Parish is conscious that he will be unable to carry on to Guehi – and his different star gamers – for too lengthy.
“We’re proud of the fact that Michael Olise’s gone to Bayern Munich,” mentioned Parish. “We want to be selling to the top clubs, or to clubs like Newcastle who’ve got great aspirations and have recently been in the Champions League.
“So now we have to handle all of these issues. We cannot get actually nice younger expertise to come back to us in the event that they assume they are going to be caught.”
He added: “We wish to be taking part in within the Champions League. The truth is we do not proper now. That is what gamers wish to obtain of their profession and we respect that and we respect the truth that typically we’ll be a pathway to that.”
