Why Crystal Palace Should Avoid Selling Andros Townsend To Stoke City
After enduring an extremely difficult season and avoiding relegation by a narrow margin, Crystal Palace will be hoping to have a much-improved season this time around.
With Sam Allardyce retired, the Eagles have brought in former AFC Ajax and Inter Milan boss Frank de Boer as their new manager and are hoping that the Dutch tactician will help the club to a much better outcome at the end of the upcoming campaign.
The squad was in need of injection of fresh blood in some areas, but so far, there have been only two new additions to the squad, in the form of midfielder Ruben Loftus-Cheek and defender Jairo Riedewald. While Palace are working on getting deals done before the end of the transfer window, one of their own players has emerged as a target for a Premier League rival.
According to reports from The Sun, Stoke City are interested in signing Eagles winger Andros Townsend and are willing to offer as much as £15million for his services.
The former Tottenham Hotspur man did not have the best of the seasons last time around with the Eagles, after having joined them from Newcastle United. But should De Boer look to offload him for £15million this summer?
The answer would be a ‘No’.
It is true that Townsend struggled to get going in the early parts of the season, following his move to the Selhurst Park. But, he decided to stay put with the Eagles and managed to find some form towards the business end of the season, finishing with 3 goals and 7 assists in 40 games in all competitions, which aren’t bad numbers by any means.
The winger does lack that element of consistency in his game, no doubt. He has struggled to perform consistently over an extended period of time and often goes through a rough patch soon after finding some good form. However, he has shown enough so far, for the club to persist with him for another season. Townsend also impressed in the pre-season for Palace, playing in an unfamiliar wing-back role under De Boer’s new system in the club’s tour of Asia.
Palace also need to consider the fact that the transfer window will close in less than a month. If they decide to sell Townsend to their rivals and then end up being not able to bring in a suitable replacement for the England international before the transfer deadline day, it would leave them in a very difficult position, given that they do not have enough quality depth in the wide areas. Therefore, Palace should not be selling him to Stoke this summer.