Wilfried Zaha: Why the biggest clubs are reluctant to buy Crystal Palace’s crown jewel Though a reputation that was destroyed at Manchester United has been rebuilt again back home at Selhurst Park, it has never fully recovered

There used to be a giant billboard poster on London’s South Circular Road with a picture of Wilfried Zaha playing for Crystal Palace and the statement in big bold white capital letters: He’s just too good for you.

It was back when he was making a mockery of Championship defenders, putting into practice the outrageous skills he had honed within the confines of the terraced Croydon house he grew up in.

Zaha remembers fondly a life with no privacy among his eight siblings, when he would spend hours in a bedroom armed with only a tennis ball and YouTube’s seemingly endless highlights reel of Ronaldinho. And the garden, host to a game where four small goals were marked out by bricks – or whatever else was lying around – in a rough square creating a tight playing area where, using skill, wit and guile, they would try to knock each other out by scoring in each other’s assigned goal.

Is he good enough?

Zaha was too good for Championship defenders, he’s too good for most Premier League defenders, but the problem for Zaha is that the sort of club at the level his early potential suggested he would be thriving at by the age of 26 does not think he is quite good enough, yet. Arsenal and Everton have been the two most recent interested parties after his brother, Judicael, made clear at the beginning of July that Zaha wanted another shot at a bigger club. It is easy to forget that he is still only 26 and on the verge of being in his prime.

Yet neither club is willing to go above the minimum £60million Palace expect. Chairman Steve Parish is a hard negotiator. When Tottenham bid about £15m for Zaha in 2016, Parish went public and vented his fury at the “ridiculous” offer.

Parish knows that with four years remaining on Zaha’s contract, worth around £110,000 per week, he has a strong hand and he is not about to fold easily, not when Arsenal offered £40m this summer, and Everton offered £55m.

Palace have sold Aaron Wan-Bissaka for £55m to Manchester United, a talented young full-back clearly, but one with only a year’s senior experience. They want more for Zaha.

So why aren’t clubs queuing up? Why aren’t Arsenal and Everton willing to add the extra £10m or £20m that would see the deal over the line?

Reputation tarnished

Reputation is certainly one part of it. Some justified, some not. Zaha is, perhaps, one of the first high-profile footballers to be chewed up by the social media monster. The internet allows damaging rumours to fester and grow and the Crystal Palace winger has certainly felt the effect of that. Though a reputation that was destroyed at Manchester United has been rebuilt again back home at Palace, it has never fully recovered.

Then there is the reluctance to defend; OK if you’re Cristiano Ronaldo or Eden Hazard (unless you play for Jose Mourinho), not OK if you’re Wilfried Zaha.

The winger has been described as “quite moany” by people who’ve known him since the early days – a trait that he had as a young player and still expresses today. Complaining if a team-mate shoots instead of passes; if they try to take on an opponent and lose possession rather than thread through a ball. It is not necessarily a criticism, many of the top players do the same: Ronaldo is forever shouting into thin air during matches.

It is likely a product of having always been a perfectionist – at primary school teachers noticed he would often restart an entire piece of work if he made a mistake. Yet attempting to attain perfection in a sport where perfection is subjectively unattainable will only ever lead to frustration.

The pull of home in south London is strong. Zaha likes to analyse his performance with his dad after matches, and on a Friday before a game that weekend the two will pray together.

His dad used to live away from Zaha, but when he had a stroke it signalled an alarm inside the player to keep him close. He would much prefer to stay in London.

He will be hoping Arsenal do not decide that actually they’re just too good for him.