Who Is Crystal Palace’s Most Valuable Player?

Most would agree that it’s Adam Wharton. Certainly, that’s what the professional assessors say.

Adam Wharton. A Dougie Freedman gift-wrapped special. A rare talent. A visionary passer unlike almost anything we have at Palace before. Signed from Blackburn in February 2024 for around £20million.

Now valued by Transfermarkt at around £60milion, with Chelsea reportedly offering £50–60million this summer against a Palace asking price stretching towards £100million. He was Man of the Match in Leipzig. Not bad for a boy who’s still only 22.

But this column would argue that our most valuable player isn’t Wharton. Not Jean-Philippe Mateta. Not Yeremy Pino. Not even Dean Henderson. Then who is?

His tactics have turned us into a long-term Premier League club, helped us win the FA Cup and gave us the chance to become a European champion. We have a trophy cabinet now, and it contains silverware many clubs would love to call their own.

He doesn’t wear the shirt, at least not in front of us. We only ever see his head and shoulders, with Mark Bright beside him (or perhaps perched on his knee, who knows?) Below the jacket and tie, he could be wearing Palace shorts, socks and his boots behind the modesty board.

But we do know he’s better at keepy-uppy than even Wharton, because he always has several balls that he’s juggling at any one moment, and arguably has more balls in the air right now than ever before.

Juggling Ownership

The club’s up for sale, or most of it is. The Financial Times reported back in June that Woody Johnson, Josh Harris and David Blitzer – who between them hold the vast majority of the shares – are exploring a sale of their combined stake, in a deal bankers are pitching at north of £1billion.

Johnson paid £550million for his 43% just over a year ago. Harris and Blitzer hold 18% apiece. Steve keeps just 10%, yet, crucially, keeps control.

How will Steve cope without his favourite billionaires? The FT’s reporting links the sale to funding the new Main Stand, whose projected costs have almost tripled since the original plans were drawn up.

Demolition is finally visible at Wooderson Close, the site’s being cleared. Progress at last — but it needs paying for, and that seems to explain a fair chunk of why the “for sale” sign is up.

Juggling Squad Cost Rules

As a Europa League club, Palace have to deal with UEFA’s rules. The SCR obligations are stricter than those of the Premier League.

Spending on wages, transfers and agent fees is limited to just 70% of club revenue under UEFA’s Squad Cost Ratio. For Premier League clubs not in Europe, the comparable limit is 85%. Breach it and you’re looking at fines, or worse, if the numbers get properly out of hand.

That’s a real constraint for a chairman trying to balance Europe League football, a summer spending programme largely funded by the Maxence Lacroix sale, a stadium rebuild and a new long-term deal for his start striker. All of it must fit within the same 70p in every pound.

Juggling Player Wages

Palace’s brief Brennan Johnson experiment has already disappeared from the payroll — sold after a dry spell that endured for the full length of his brief stay since arriving in a club-record £35 million deal from Spurs in January. Six months, no end product, gone.

Which must leave Jørgen Strand Larsen glancing nervously over his shoulder. The Norwegian broke that same transfer record within weeks of Johnson’s arrival, at close to £50milion and JPM is still here — Palace have just tabled a new contract aimed keeping Mateta in red and blue until 2030, on the back of him scoring the winner in the Conference League final. Mateta remains first choice up top.

So JSL could perhaps be forgiven for wondering who might be swapped for him if his own end product doesn’t arrive quickly.

Plus, Steve’s probably had a long list of agents on the phone this summer, one way or another pointing at their clients generating goals, assists and saves while big earners produce little. Especially the big producers at the World Cup Finals.

This was the World Cup that helped push Crystal Palace further into the global spotlight with both Danny Munoz and Ismaila Sarr scoring more than once. And Pino, Mateta and Henderson all involved right up to and including the final weekend.

Steve Still Silent

Wherever possible, it feels like Steve tells us nothing.

Progress on the sale? Nothing official beyond the FT.

Progress on the stand? Nothing beyond a trickle of photos of diggers and cleared plots, which is more than we’ve had in years, but still a long way from steel going up.

Silent Steve is a Palace hero, but he can be annoying – he knows it. Still. At least we know where his heart is. Cut him and he bleeds red and blue, even while he’s fielding calls from Wall Street bankers about selling the whole thing out from under himself.

Silent So Far

And where does Pierre Sage fit into all of this? Until now he’s largely been the back-room figure, but in a matter of days he’ll step into the full glare of Premier League football.

Pierre Sage arrives with a French Cup won at Lens — their first ever — and a runners-up finish in Ligue 1 behind only PSG, whom he beat along the way. He’s promised the same 3-4-2-1 shape Glasner used, albeit with his own stamp on it.

But he’s never managed in the Premier League, and everyone, but everyone, is worried about results on the pitch. It’s not an obviously strengthened squad — Mingueza and Tomiyasu in on frees, Lacroix out to Chelsea, and clickbait still doing its best to talk Wharton, Munoz and maybe even Sarr away from us.

The Europa League draw lands on 28 August, and the pool Palace are swimming in in a competition beneath only the Champions League includes Juventus, Bayer Leverkusen, AC Milan, Marseille and TSG Hoffenheim — every one of them capable of lifting this trophy, and every one of them a considerably tougher test than anything we saw on the way to Leipzig.

So there’s your answer. Wharton might be the one Chelsea want and Transfermarkt prices up. But the man juggling incoming transfers, player sales, the ownership sale, the stadium rebuild, the Squad Cost Ratio, the wage bill and a rookie Premier League head coach, all at once, all while saying almost nothing about any of it — that’s Steve Parish. Most valuable player at Crystal Palace Football Club, no shirt required.