A few years ago, you would never have expected Crystal Palace to turn into a hot-bed for young talent. Fast forward to 2013, however, and the club has a number of promising developing talents on their books.
Not the least of which is Crystal Palace’s ace winger, Wilfried Zaha, a player who is on his way to Manchester United this summer. Zaha has pace, smarts, and tricky feet and is sure to settle quickly into the Premier League lifestyle.
It was something about the quality and ability of a player, when you have no qualms about him fitting in at a club as competitive as Manchester United.
According to The Mirror, Arsene Wenger was also keen to sign the English pace-man, and is ‘still smarting’ after getting gazumped by his old rival Sir Alex Ferguson.
And now it looks like Arsene is ready to balance out the proceedings by making a £10m bid for the Eagle’s young Welshman, Jonathan Williams.
That’s a lot of money to spend on a player so young. Williams is just 19-years-old, but has already won plenty of plaudits for his all-action midfield displays.
Whilst he started the season on the fringes at Palace, his performances have earned him starting roles and he’s also started to feature for the Welsh national side, playing roles in the victory over Scotland and the defeat to Croatia.
At this stage in his career, I’d compare him to a pre-injury Aaron Ramsey. And not just because they are both promising Welsh midfielders. Williams has an excellent range of passing, can carry the ball forward in the midfield and is smart in and around the box. He likes to make a nusiance of himself and has left many Championship opponents flummoxed this season.
Like Ramsey, however, there’s no guarantee that he’ll be able to make the step up to the very top level of the game. You get the feeling that Zaha is a sure thing, whilst Williams still needs an opportunity to develop his game and improve himself without any unnecessary pressure.
Still, Arsenal is a great place for young players to play their football and he’d quickly improve under Arsene Wenger’s watchful eye. If Wenger is willing to spend £10m on a player of his age, then he must see something in him.
What’s your take? Should Arsenal really be splashing the cash on players who may-or-may-not make it at the top level?
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Williams is as ready for the step up than Zaha, he wasn’t ‘on the fringes’ of the Palace squad at the beginning of the season he was injured. He broke his leg when he was with the Wales squad 18 months ago and has taken over a year to recover from that and some following niggles but is back to playing as well as he had before it happened. The comparison with Ramsey is fairly accurate although his main attributes are his close control and acceleration so he’s a little different to Ramsey. He’s also proven recently he can play deeper and is a surprisingly good tackler so you could argue he’s more like Wilshere.
He was man of the match in both of the games he played for Wales (in which one he came on at half time) so there will be plenty of interest in him but he’s stated he wants to stay longer to get games under his belt as Zaha, Clyne, Moses, Routledge etc have all done. Whether or not that happens we shall see but I expect it will take more than £10m to prise him away this summer
Even from a Palace fan it’s hard to argue there are few better places he could end up than Arsenal based on his style of play, and I’m sure he’s been on their radar since his wonder-assist for the youths a couple of years ago!
Whereas Ramsey takes the extra second to think about his next move Williams is more spontaneous , similar to Wilshire, and in fact his movement is strikingly similar though time will in fact tell if he is as good as Jack.