Palace have announced the capture of the highly-rated and massively exciting prospect Eberechi Eze from QPR on a five-year deal, but what can Eagles fans expect from him?
We went to someone who knows him well and asked Clive Whittingham from the excellent QPR blog Loft For Words for the inside scoop on Eze and whether he can make the step up to the Premier League...
Who knows if he'll make the step up? Impossible to tell with these things, but he's got all of the physical attributes, he's got his head screwed on, and he's more talented than just about anything I've seen come out of this league for many a year so he's got every chance. He's certainly better now than James Maddison was when Leicester took him from Norwich. Kalvin Phillips just made the England squad and Eze took the bloke to school at Loftus Road this season when we beat Leeds. It was actually quite embarrassing for the lad, he got sent off in the end. Bless.
The good stuff. He scores all kinds of goals at a frequency of between one every four or five games, and he doesn't play up front. You'll find him arriving late in the box for a few six yarders, you'll see him pop the odd one in from outside the area, he's got an immaculate volley on him, and he has an ability to go past two, three or four players at a time and finish at the end of that. He assists and is involved in goals far more frequently than the official stats let on. I find the reporting of Championship assists to either be incredibly harsh or downright lazy, so we do our own and review it on video afterwards and we had him down for 14 last season to go with his 14 goals.
Some of them (Nahki Wells v Cardiff) show a vision far beyond what you normally get in a Championship player. He's durable, despite being kicked from pillar to post he was our only Championship ever present last season and played in 42 out of 46 league games the season before. He's strong, and beautifully balanced, so he's very difficult to knock or bully off the ball. He's deceptively quick, and all of that combines into him just sort of ghosting and gliding past players. His first touch is pure sex.
The bad stuff. Not much. I've never seen anybody quite as bad at heading the ball. There was a perception that he was a bit lazy and didn't work hard enough defensively in his earlier days at QPR but that's certainly, palpably not the case now he's got 120+ games under his belt and personally I thought that criticism was completely unfounded in the first place. A combination of a young player being overused and tiring quite early in his career, and dare I say the sort of criticism that often gets chucked the way of young black players with a slightly languid style.
READ MORE: The Eze facts and figures that show how good he was for QPR in 2019/20
Fitting him into a team will be the thing. We play 4-2-3-1 and he can play anywhere across the three, most effectively on the left and cutting infield onto his right foot. Good examples of him scoring against Blackburn H, assisting against Derby H and winning two penalties at Hull doing this last season if you want to look up the highlights. Actually, just watch this. Ridiculous afternoon...
He's good playing deeper to the left of a target man striker (Jordan Hugill for us last season) and linking up with another ball player at 'ten' (Ilias Chair for us). He can of course play ten himself with wingers either side. We found our most effective method last year was to stick Bright Osayi Samuel (who clubs should also be looking at more than they are) wide on the right and Eze wide on the left which meant defensces got stretched and couldn't double up on the pair of them. If you were to try and play him deeper, or conventional central midfield... I don't know, not sure it could work.
MORE: Crystal Palace Transfer Activity Pivots to Address Goal Drought
Other stuff you should know... He got booted out of Arsenal, Millwall, Reading and Fulham's academies before we picked him up. All the usual bullshit about laziness and not working hard enough and not complying with whatever genius system their jumped up U16 coach was trying to play. Very God fearing, expect bible passages on Instagram and a lot of "all glory to God" stuff, so hopefully no Harry Maguire-style summer holidays to worry about. Always comes across really well, very humble and polite in interviews. And his younger brother, who could be his twin brother to look at them and watch them play, is currently doing bits in our U18s so hopefully there'll be another cab off the rank for us to enjoy soon.
And remember that unlike Benrahma, Pereira, Watkins and the other Championship players getting linked with moves, he's been doing it in quite a poor QPR team. We're a really difficult club to play for, and he's stood out as the outstanding talent in the division despite that.
You've got a gem. Beautiful player. So enjoyable to watch. Cheap at the price.
Just don't do that thing where you try him in a couple of League Cup games, give him an hour playing defensive midfield with James Mcarthur in some 4-0 surrender away from home, then loan him out to fcking Stoke or some sht like that. Honestly, we'll find out where you live and somebody will get hurt.
Listen to the latest FYP Podcast here: