Crystal Palace sold “fantastic” ace too soon, he’s now as valuable as Olise

After a Premier League season that has mostly been disappointing, things are beginning to look up for Crystal Palace supporters.

Last month, the club’s manager, Roy Hodgson, eventually stepped down after a string of resounding losses and dull performances. Oliver Glasner, a highly entertaining player, took over as manager.

The Austrian coach has had success with Wolfsburg, Eintracht Frankfurt, and LASK in his native country. With the latter, he won the 2022 Europa League.

Even though it will take some time for him to repeat such a great accomplishment with the Eagles, four points from his first three games isn’t a bad start.

It is possible that the team is not fully prepared to play the offensive and progressive style of football he was renowned for in the Bundesliga. Nevertheless, he should be able to help players like Michael Olise and Eberechi Eze succeed. However, he probably would have preferred to have a previous player who was sold too soon and is now worth as much as the Frenchman.

Michael Olise’s value at Crystal Palace Olise made an impression in the Championship, tallying seven goals and dishing out twelve assists in just 46 games for the Royals. Palace acquired Olise from Reading in July 2021 for a comparatively low sum of £8 million.

The Hammersmith-born jewel had to overcome rejections from Chelsea’s Cobham, Arsenal’s Hale End, and even a brief stay with Manchester City’s youth system before making it to the Premier League.

After joining the team, though, he was thrown into the deep end and made 31 appearances for Patrick Vieira in the FA Cup and Premier League in 2021/22, tallying eight assists and scoring four goals.

His goal total dropped to just two goals in 40 games the next season (including this incredible freekick), but he made up for it with 11 assists and finished with a goal every 3.07 games.

The 22-year-old’s season has been unusual because he has only made 11 appearances for the team due to two hamstring injuries. Despite this, he has scored six goals and provided three assists in those 11 games, meaning he has averaged a goal involvement every 1.22 games.

Olise’s incredible form, age, and the fact that he inked a new contract with the South Londoners last summer have all contributed to CIES Football Observatory’s valuation of him at about €40m, or £34 million.

Although a club would actually need to pay a significantly higher price to get the elusive winger out of Selhurst Park, Olise’s current CIES valuation is comparable to that of a previous Palace player who may have been better off staying with the team.

The appraisal of Alexander Sørloth at Crystal Palace

Alexander Sørloth, a nine-year-old Norwegian, joined the Eagles during the 2018 winter transfer window for a meager £9 million from FC Midtjylland in Denmark.

Before moving to England, the 22-year-old was enjoying a fantastic season with the Danish powerhouses, recording 15 goals and dishing out nine assists in 26 games. Sadly, things there didn’t work out.

He made just four pointless appearances for the Eagles in that first season before losing his spot in the starting lineup. The following year, he joined Gent on loan during the winter transfer window, having made 13 appearances for Palace but only managing one goal and one assist.

His confidence was evidently affected by his shortcomings in English football, as he was only able to muster five goals and three assists in 22 games for the Belgian team.

Given his dismal results, it seems inevitable that Steve Parish and company would eventually have to sell the Norwegian at a loss. Nevertheless, in the 2019–20 season, they chose to send him on one more loan, this time for two years to Turkish Süper Lig team Trabzonspor. This choice proved wise a year later.

With a final-minute goal to unseat Georgian striker Shota Arveladze as the club’s top-scoring foreign player of all time, the 6′ 5 behemoth proved to be a man possessed in Turkey, finishing the season with 33 goals and 11 assists in just 49 appearances.

Teams began to knock on Palace’s door after his season in Turkey showed that there was a clinical nine in there somewhere. However, rather than try to see if the Norwegian could repeat that kind of play in England, the club decided to sell the in-demand player to Bundesliga side RB Leipzig for a fee of approximately £20 million, which they would split with Trabzonspor because the original loan deal was only for two years.

“He’s a physical and technical player, who is strong in the air and a good finisher,” stated then-sporting director Markus Krösche, indicating that the East German club was clearly thrilled by the move. Alexander possesses every quality a football player needs.

“He had a fantastic season in Turkey, where he showed himself to be a goalscorer and provider.”