The Crystal Palace chairman, Steve Parish, has admitted that they are looking to sell their captain Marc Guéhi in this transfer window to avoid potentially losing him for nothing next summer.
The England defender has entered the final 12 months of his contract at Selhurst Park and is wanted by a number of Premier League teams, including Liverpool and Newcastle. It is understood that Arne Slot’s side – who lost to Palace on penalties in the Community Shield on Sunday – is Guéhi’s preferred option, although they have so far been reluctant to pay Palace’s £40m valuation.
Newcastle failed with multiple bids in excess of £50m for the 24-year-old last summer, while Tottenham had an offer worth up to £70m rejected by Palace in January. But when asked if they would be willing to allow Guéhi to leave this month if they receive a suitable offer, Parish acknowledged that they could not afford to allow him to run down his contract.
“We’d have to do that, of course,” he said. “For players of that calibre to leave on a free, it’s a problem for us unfortunately. [Last summer] Joachim [Anderson] went [to Fulham] and we couldn’t afford to lose both. We then had another bid in January but that was a different situation. We’ll just have to see what happens. But, you know, it needs a new contract or a conclusion of some kind.”
Guéhi is understood to be willing to stay at Selhurst Park and see out his contract if necessary. He will be able to sign a pre-contract agreement with clubs outside England in January, while Eberechi Eze has also attracted interest from Arsenal in this transfer window. “As far as people being here or not being here, it depends,” added Parish. “If it’s the right decision for the football club and for them, nobody can make anyone go, then there’ll be some changes.”
Oliver Glasner has been critical of Palace’s lack of activity in the transfer market so far but Parish insisted that he will do his best to back the Austrian manager after delivering the club’s second piece of silverware in the space of three months. “I admire Oliver so much. He just wants to win trophies and football matches,” he said. “The Premier League is kind of crazy, the money that people spend and the kind of financial jeopardy that people take. So I have to look at everything around [that].
“We’ll do everything we can in the next few weeks to give ourselves the best chance. But at the end of the day, the amount of money we’ve got isn’t infinite.”
Parish also said he was hopeful that Palace’s appeal to the court of arbitration for sport against their demotion to the Europa Conference League will be successful. The hearing was held in Lausanne on Friday, with a decision expected on Monday afternoon. “It’ll be good to put it behind us,” he said.
“I’m determined that we get the right outcome – if we don’t, we’ll have to look at if there’s any steps after that. But after Friday, I don’t understand how we cannot be in the competition.”