Dan Cook has been speaking on the HLTCO podcast about Jean-Philippe Mateta’s time at Crystal Palace and how poor he’s been.
Crystal Palace decided to bring in Mateta last January to offer competition Christian Benteke and Jordan Ayew, however, that experiment has failed miserably with the French striker having netted just once since he joined from Metz.
Could Crystal Palace be relegated?
Yes!
No!
Mateta has worked under two different managers and has failed to nail down a spot in the starting lineup under either of them, racking up 10 appearances across all competitions, so he’s clearly not been putting the work in behind the scenes.
Cook admits he is frustrated Mateta has not impressed but knows he’s had sufficient chances to do so.
(9:40) “Unfortunately for him, it hasn’t worked out and I’m as frustrated as anyone for him. I would love nothing more than for Jean-Philippe Mateta to come to Crystal Palace, hit a real purple patch of goalscoring form and proved to be a quality Premier League operator in front of goal.
“Unfortunately, it’s extremely difficult to do that, particularly when you are a striker and your main job is to put the ball in the back of the net.
“He has been given opportunities, I think we can look back towards that League Cup tie against Watford at the beginning of the season, he missed two or three chances in that game and one, in particular, that was just underneath the crossbar, which was pretty much inexcusable.”
TIF Thoughts on Mateta…
It has been reported by The Sun, that Mateta has been told that he’s free to return back to the Bundesliga in January and thus cutting his loan spell at Selhurst Park short with it originally being an 18-month deal.
Cook mentioned the game earlier this season against Watford in which Mateta missed a chance when the ball was directly underneath the crossbar, and when a striker is doing things such as that, it may signal that he’s not cut out for the English game, no matter how he looked in Germany.
Palace did bring in another attacker over the summer with Odsonne Edouard arriving from Celtic and he’s already made a bigger impact than Mateta in 11 games, having scored three times so there appears to be very little hope that Mateta can make the smallest impact from now up until January.
In other news: ‘His days in south London are numbered’ – Dan Cook reacts to ‘noises’ regarding CPFC ace