With West Bromwich Albion’s relegation to the Championship confirmed, clubs will be looking to sign some of their players but Steve Howey, who made 193 Premier League appearances, exclusively told This is Futbol that Crystal Palace must be careful if they are wanting to sign Mbaye Diagne.
West Brom acknowledged the fact that they were in the thick of a relegation battle early on in the season as they replaced Slaven Bilic with Sam Allardyce back in December, but the former England manager could not keep the Baggies up.
Palace will be wanting to add more goals to their strike force, especially with the devastating news that Eberechi Eze will be out for several months, and they have been linked with Diagne who impressed in a goal-shy West Brom side.
The Eagles spent big on Christian Benteke when they signed the Belgian from Liverpool back in 2016 for a club-record £27m, something that Howey believes may have scared Simon Jordan and the club’s owners, as he spoke exclusively to This is Futbol:
“I watched him against Newcastle and he missed an awful lot of opportunities so I think they need to be careful if they sign him.
“Without being harsh, I think they’ve been burned by the signing of Christian Benteke but they could look at him and be able to see something in him that I don’t.”
Palace had three strikers at the club this season in Benteke, Jordan Aye and Michy Batshuayi with the latter spending a second season on loan at Selhurst Park with this time around not being anywhere near as fruitful.
In the last week, Roy Hodgson put an end to all the speculation surrounding his future at the club as he announced that this would be his last season as Palace’s manager with Frank Lampard the early favourite for the job.