Palace chairman: We need to help Wilfried Zaha fulfil his ambitions

Fulham's Callum Chambers and Crystal Palace's Wilfried Zaha battle for the ball

Monday Sep 24, 2018. 09:00

Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish says the Premier League club need to live up to the ambitions of star Ivorian player Wilfried Zaha.

The forward was strongly linked with a move away from Selhurst Park in the offseason, but instead remained with the Eagles and recently signed a new and improved contract.

Retaining the West African star was a major boost for Palace, who have not won a game in which he has been absent since September 2016.

Yet Parish has admitted that he is unsure of what the future holds for the relationship between player and club, and says Palace need to match the ambitions of Zaha.

"Wilfried [Zaha] has a strong history with the club as you know," he said, speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live.

"If the conditions were right in the summer, I know he was happy to stay.

"Who knows what will happen in the future? Obviously he is a top player and we need to be part of fulfilling his ambitions, or maybe at some point in the future those ambitions will take him somewhere else.

"We don't look that far into the future, he's got a five-year contract.

"The priority for us now is to try and stay in this league and then push on as much as we can, and see if he'll express his talent in a Crystal Palace shirt, which is what we all want.”