Dan Cook has admitted on the HLTCO podcast the one concern he’d have about Crystal Palace signing Houssem Aouar.
Crystal Palace did lose Cheikhou Kouyaté to free agency at the end of last season and have seemingly replaced him with Cheick Doucouré, who has started both of Palace’s opening games, although they may not be done beefing up their midfield just yet.
That is because reports are suggesting that they could be getting ready to hijack Nottingham Forest’s attempt to sign Aouar from Lyon, which makes sense considering that John Textor, a shareholder at Palace, is now the majority owner of the French side.
While Cook admits he’d love for Aouar to join Palace, he would have a concern about how their midfield would look physically.
He said: “If you are to break down his style of play, he is a central midfielder by trade, but if you delve into the weird and wonderful world of YouTube over the next 12-24 hours, you will see that he’s a very, very confident player with the ball at his feet, he will look to pick men out with passes, he will dribble past his opponent, he will find space where you don’t think there is any.
“He’s quite diminutive in stature, but that doesn’t take away from his ball-playing ability, and if you throw him into a midfield with the likes of your Eberechi Eze, Wilfried Zaha and Michael Olise, so on and so forth, he’d only add to the quality level.
Would you like Palace to sign Aouar?
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“There would be, in my mind, a little bit of a concern about a lack of beef in our midfield if we were to, say, go with Cheick Doucouré and Houssem Aouar at the base of the midfield and Eberechi Eze in front of them, I’m not sure how that exactly would mesh together.”
TIF Thoughts on Aouar fitting into the Palace midfield…
It wasn’t too long ago that Aouar was being linked with a move to Arsenal, but his attacking output at Lyon has not taken a significant step up over the last few years, which is perhaps why clubs such as Nottingham Forest and Palace respectively, are now able to compete for his signature.
Cook spoke about Palace lacking some beef in their midfield if the three were to be Aouar, Doucoure and Eze, and it’s a fair point as none of them are taller than 5ft 10in, which could be a problem when they come up against stronger and more physical sides.
However, as was showcased on Monday night when Eze glided past Fabinho at Anfield, who is a far more physically dominant player given his height if Palace can work the ball around players, then physicality becomes far less of a problem.