“Why are you shaking your head,” Mark Chapman asked Troy Deeney in the Match of the Day studio as they discussed Jorgen Strand Larsen’s imminent move to Crystal Palace from Wolves.
“It’s nothing to do with me,” Deeney said with a big grin on his face. “Sell [Jean-Philippe] Mateta for £30m and buy Strand Larsen for £48m?! Wish I was still playing – one good year gets you 48 mil? Anyway, what do I know?”
We’ll leave that last question to hang, but man-of-the-people Deeney was voicing a widely held belief that Palace have dramatically overpaid for an average Premier League striker to a ‘game’s gone’ level.
READ MORE: January Transfer Deadline Day as it happened – recap the day with Football365…
Jamie Carragher highlighted Strand Larsen’s 14 non-penalty goals last season and the fact that both he and Wolves were preparing for his January exit for much of this season as reasons why it might turn out to be good business for Palace.
“I think Strand Larsen is a good player, hence why there’s been so much interest in him,” Carragher said on Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football. “People are not buying him based on this season’s performances.
“He’s playing for a really poor team. And he’s not been playing a lot of late he’s been on the substitutes bench, a lot. I think the club want to move him on and bring some money in.
“I watched him last season and he looked like not a real top striker but certainly a striker you wouldn’t associate with playing at the bottom.
“He can definitely play for a team in the middle of the league. The big thing that stands out from last season is the goals – non-penalty goals. To score 14 goals with no penalties – that takes some going.”
Wolves’ imminent relegation combined with the striker’s poor form might have seen his asking price drop more than it has done, but Newcastle had a bid of £55m rejected for Strand Larsen in the summer before they paid £70m for Woltemade. Palace have just accepted that the striker market is absurdly inflated and paid what was required for a new one.
The collapse of Jean-Philippe Mateta’s move to AC Milan will raise questions as to whether Palace should have pulled out of the move for Strand Larsen, but Mateta has been part of the team without a Premier League win in nine games. Something needed to change and Strand Larsen could be that something.
Dwight McNeil could have been too(?!) but we’re absolutely certain Everton couldn’t believe their luck when the offer of a loan with a £20m obligation to by arrived in their inbox, double-checking the placement of the decimal point before laughing the proposal into David Moyes’ office.
McNeil might have kicked on at Everton following the appointment of Moyes. He feels like a very Moyes player – loves a cross and all that. But he’s got just one assist and no goals in 616 minutes of Premier League football this season, and anyone watching him consistently give the ball away and get caught in possession has accepted that the Toffees have, or rather had, outgrown him.
That doesn’t say much for Palace, who were celebrating their first major trophy in May, are currently competing in Europe, finished above Everton in the Premier League last season and whose downtrodden fans would have wondered quite how in 18 months they had gone from watching Michael Olise on the wing to an Everton cast-off, with just £30m-odd in change to show for that stunning downgrade.
The transfer collapsed at the eleventh hour, but the intent is a damning indictment of just how far Palace have fallen.
