Wilfried Zaha could reportedly ‘shun’ contract talks with Crystal Palace as he eyes a big move for free in the summer.
Arsenal are once again being linked with a move for Wilfried Zaha who is out of contract in the summer but I feel his chance to move to Arsenal has passed him by.
Tottenham, however, are also said to be interested.
When Unai Emery was manager at Arsenal he wanted Zaha but, for reasons that have never been explained, the club allowed Raul Sanllehi to pay £72m for Nicolas Pepe instead.
Arsenal had even held a meeting with Zaha before signing Pepe.
Ever since Mikel Arteta arrived at the club, however, rumours linking Arsenal with another move for Zaha have died down considerably and have all but stopped over the last two years.
That leads me to believe that this latest piece by Ash Rose for Mail Online linking Arsenal with a move for the 29-year-old is using a lot of old information to pad out the piece.
Quoting David Ornstein speaking on The Five Podcast, Rose relays, “Palace would dearly love to sign Zaha to sign him to a new contract I’m sure. But with free agency looming and he’s never had that big move that many anticipated.
“Of course he went to Manchester United and it didn’t work out but since then we’ve seen Arsenal linked with him, we’ve seen Tottenham at various points, and we’ve seen Chelsea last summer.”
As you can see, Ornstein is talking about previous Arsenal links, not anything recent.
“That move hasn’t happened. Palace value him so highly as they know without him there’s a good chance they’d be in a relegation scrap. So they’ve always set a very high asking price.
“There’ll be a number of clubs who will look at him and wonder if they can get him for nothing in the summer of 2023. There’ll be conversations I’m sure. Many in the game feel he’ll hold out and go as a free-agent and play in the Champions League.”
Arsenal under Arteta have a very specific profile of player that they look to sign and Zaha does not look like he fits it, especially given his age.
In the last few transfer windows, Arsenal have only brought in one player over the age of 25 and that was Matt Turner, a keeper, who, at 28, is still younger than Zaha.
Lessons seem to have been learned after the William signing.