Speaking on a recent episode of the HLTCO podcast, Dan Cook discussed the reported interest from Manchester City and Liverpool in Crystal Palace youth prospect, Zion Atta.
Atta joined Palace from Millwall as a 13-year-old, with the south London side reportedly paying £60,000 to bring the left-winger to the club.
Now 15 years old, Palace have been highly impressed with the development of the youngster, and have even invited him to train with their U18 side, despite the player’s tender age.
However, Roy Hodgson’s side have not been the only ones impressed with the winger, with Manchester City and Liverpool, as well as Bayern Munich, Borussia Monchengladbach and Augsburg, all reported to be closely monitoring the situation of the England U16 international.
Despite this apparent interest, Palace were successful in tying the youngster down to scholarship terms earlier in the year, and, speaking on a recent episode of the HLTCO podcast, Cook discussed the club’s hopes of ensuring that Atta goes on to sign a professional deal in south London, as well as the reported interest in the 15-year-old.
He said: “One particular young player that I want to draw attention to who is actually, I believe, at U16 level for us at the moment – maybe U18s – is a young lad by the name of Zion Atta. He’s someone that a huge number of clubs were looking at a year or so ago. He’s probably, if you were going to look at the media hype that surrounds our young players, he’s the one that has the most noise around him.
“There were all sorts of links between him and top, top European clubs over the last 12 months and it seems as though both Manchester City and Liverpool are refusing to be deterred in their pursuit of him. According to different reports, we are relatively hopeful of tying him down to a professional deal as and when the time comes.
“I believe we paid Millwall somewhere around £60,000 when he was 13 to secure his services. And obviously, you’d hope that the Category One academy enables us to convince him to stay with us and not allow his gaze to drift to the likes of Manchester City and Liverpool, but there is no guarantee of this.”
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TIF Thoughts on Dan Cook’s comments regarding Zion Atta…
From Cook’s comments, it is clear that the podcaster is hopeful that Palace’s recent improvement of their academy status to category one is enough to ensure that Atta is convinced to stay on at the club, amid the lure of teams such as Liverpool and Manchester City.
And, it has to be said, with players such as Aaron Wan-Bissaka graduating from the Palace academy before going on to secure a big-money move away from the club in recent years, there certainly appears to be a trodden path for Atta to follow in south London, if he is to progress as is evidently expected.