Mamadou Sakho’s move to Crystal Palace could still be on as the London club see the Frenchman as their number one centre-back option for the summer. It was believed that the club would not be able to afford the defender, who was on loan at the Eagles last season, but Melissa Reddy claims via Goal that the Frenchman has already agreed personal terms with Palace.
The report further adds that Sakho is set to return to Melwood tomorrow for pre-season training and has been working extra hard at the club’s training ground to return to full fitness.
The defender picked up a season-ending injury during the latter stages of last season but did help the Eagles avoid relegation, thanks to a number of impressive displays.
Frank de Boer, the new manager of Palace, had even suggested that he would be looking at other players to fix their hole in defence but this report suggests otherwise.
Even Palace’s chairman, Steve Parish, had suggested that the club would not pay over the odds for Sakho and was waiting to see if we were willing to budge on our valuation of the former PSG man.
We still want close to £30million for the 27-year-old Frenchman, and he does not really have a future at the club, irrespective of whether he does move away or not.
Sakho spent most of last season playing for the U-23 before making the switch to Palace in the winter transfer window.
With prices reaching crazy levels, holding out for £30million does make sense. Sakho is a player that has performed well for both us and Palace. Further, he certainly made the defence of the Eagles better and will look to continue his good form ahead of a World Cup year.
This seems like a similar situation to the Christian Benteke one. The Belgian’s asking price was also high for Palace initially at the start of last season but the deal was completed after a lot of haggling.
We made a pretty sum by selling the striker back then and we seem set to achieve a similar deal by selling Sakho to Palace this time around.
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