£20million for Yannick Bolasie.
‘Not enough. Andy Carroll was sold for £35million.’
‘Madness. Don Rogers only cost us £10,000 and a set of track suits. With £20 million we would have got Don Rogers, Swindon, Wiltshire and whatever the surrounding counties over there are called.’
My suspicion is that the Bolasie transfer rumour has more to do with the fact that we have no relegation battle to fight, and because of that thing he did at White Hart Lane still looks bloody amazing on YouTube.
https://youtu.be/UwbT4uEYh_4
But because there is no relegation battle to fight and I have already told you who is going to be relegated, so you do not need to worry, I have decided to look back at the history of Palace’s most and least inspired player sales.
Like most football fans** I adhere to the theory that my club have never, ever sold any player for the best price.
** except Tottenham Hotspur, who responded to selling Luka Modric and Gareth Bale for £140 million by buying Channel 5’s Europa League team of the Quarter Finals 2013, and sending Harry Kane and Ryan Mason on loan to Norwich City and Bristol Rovers.
In my memory, we have always sold players out of necessity or incompetence, and therefore never got that £20 million.
For those with only recent memories, that thing where we sold Wilfried Zaha to Manchester United for what seemed like a good price, then bought him back for much less, is a complete one-off.
For those with only slightly older memories, that thing where we got really really bitter with John Bostock for leaving as soon as he (and his Dad) could, was also a bit of a one-off, because other players we have lost for next to nothing turned out to be pretty, pretty good.
While we mock Tottenham (and I can trace my personal bitterness towards Tottenham to the day they signed Peter Taylor) we should really focus on their beloved Gooner neighbours, because they have historically done rather well of the back of us.
Based on what they achieved in the rest of their careers, the Kenny Sansom for Clive Allen swap deal between Palace and Arsenal in 1980 was done at a fair price. Except that neither player made much impact at Selhurst Park.
Sansom was the best full back of his time, and while his career tailed off too early, that demise began after eight top years at Arsenal. Clive Allen was the best goal-hanger of his age not called Lineker and scored bags of goals … for Queens Park Rangers and Spurs.
And that swap deal came ten years before Ian Wright crossed the Thames for £1.8 million or so. That worked out at ten thousand pounds a goal. Alexis Sanchez might be a pretty good player, but I think he might struggle to get the 3,500 goals he needs to match Wrighty.
You might see Portsmouth as a great regional club going through the most desperately unfair times after appalling mismanagement. You are not far off, to be honest.
Except to my bitter teenage mind, they were the club that saw too many of the best years of two of my own Palace favourites – Vince Hilaire and Billy Gilbert – who left Palace in the mid-1980’s after several seasons fought avoiding another relegation.
Many players we have lost have been as a result of relegation, especially since Sky ‘invented‘ football in 1992.
After being relegated in fourth bottom place in 1994/95, we lost several top-class players including academy graduates like Gareth Southgate (to Villa) and John Salako to Coventry (yes Coventry). Tottenham were more sympathetic, giving us £4.5 million for Chris Armstrong.
Palace being Palace, we also sold players in fire sales as we looked to stave off liquidation. At the time of going into receivership in January 2010, all eyes were on Victor Moses, our most valuable asset, who Wigan Athletic took off us at around £2 million.
Arguably a smarter move was made by Southampton who grabbed Jose Fonte for around £1.2 million, and he has subsequently played 200 games for them. A great value buy for them. As was Nathaniel Clyne. Southampton have done rather well out of us.
There has been the odd sale where we thought that we got a pretty good fee. Back in 1979 we got £250,000 for Steve MacKenzie from Manchester City before he even played a game! In 2008 Stoke City paid us just over £1 million for the 21 year-old Tom Soares, who only played seven first-team games there before drifting off to Scotland and the lower leagues. I wonder what happened to the manager who made that signing?
Matt Jansen only played 26 games for us before heading back up north to Blackburn Rovers. We made a very handy £3 million profit on him.
What a player Jansen was. Skilful, smart and an instant crowd favorite.
Which reminds me of someone else we have right now.
