Dwight Gayle has agreed a new contract at Crystal Palace as the club’s hierarchy seek to protect the squad’s assets by securing players to long-term deals.

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The striker’s impact this season has been limited, with his goal at West Ham United earlier this month his first in the Premier League for 21 games, stretching back to January 2015. Indeed, before making the XI for Saturday’s victory against Norwich City, which lifted the London club 10 points clear of the bottom three, he had not started a game since the end of October.

Palace had accepted a bid of £9m for his services from Bristol City last summer and, once he had rejected that move, knocked back interest from Norwich, lodged two hours before September’s transfer deadline, because there was no time in which to secure a replacement. Hamstring problems have frustrated Gayle’s impact in the period since, leaving a player who had cost an initial fee in the region of £3.5m back in 2013, then a club record, kicking his heels too often on the sidelines.

The 25-year-old, Palace’s top scorer in all competitions for the last two seasons, has four goals in the League Cup this term but, after protracted talks, Palace have now agreed terms to tie him to the club until 2019 – his current deal expires in a year’s time. This comes with an acknowledgement that offers will be discussed with the forward, should he remain only a squad player at the club and further interest surfaces.

“I believe that contract is agreed,” said Alan Pardew, who will choose between Gayle and Connor Wickham to lead the line against Everton on Wednesday, with Emmanuel Adebayor at best on the bench. Pardew added: “If it’s signed, I’m not 100% sure, but he’s a player who scores goals and we’ve missed him for long periods this season. All our strikers have been out for too long: we’ve never had a continuous run with one of them, and that’s probably one of the reasons the goals tally next to their names don’t really reflect their ability.”

Gayle follows Scott Dann, Joel Ward, James McArthur, Jason Puncheon, Yannick Bolasie and Pape Souaré in signing new long-term deals. McArthur, who has been absent since February with ankle ligament damage, is now back in full training and may return to the lineup at Manchester United next Wednesday, four days before Palace’s FA Cup semi-final against Watford at Wembley.

“Adebayor is now fit, so he’s gone into the squad,” Pardew said. “McArthur is very close, he is training with us now. We’re hoping, if all goes well, he could feature in the Manchester United game which would be a huge bonus before the semi-final because we’ve really missed him. If we beat Everton then it would be very difficult for other teams [in the bottom three] to catch us. So we want to hunt down as many points as possible.”