Islam Slimani has gone from ‘seriously thinking about a change of air’ to ‘wants to leave this winter’ in the space of a week, and that’s good news for Crystal Palace fans.
This morning, we relayed an article from L’Expression in Algeria claiming the Leicester City striker was basically fed up of his situation at King Power Stadium, and an exit seems to be getting closer.
So why are Crystal Palace involved in all this?
Well, about a week ago, another Algerian website called Le Buteur claimed the Eagles were interested in buying the Leicester striker in January, and it made sense.
After all, Roy Hodgson has had to field the likes of Wilfried Zaha and Andros Townsend as striker over the past few weeks due to injuries to both Connor Wickham and Christian Benteke, with the former of the two not expected to return before 2018.
His Belgian teammate should be back by December, but for fear of ending up in a similar situation again, bringing in another out and out striker might not be the worst idea.
If the plan is to have a target man, then Islam Slimani makes a lot of sense.
Yet to be used by Claude Puel, the 29-year-old has only played 107 minutes of Premier League football this season, making all of his meaningful appearances in the EFL Cup, scoring four goals in three games.
Word had it, via the same Le Buteur article, that Leicester would want to get most of their money back were they to sell Slimani, which would equate to somewhere around £25m+.
Having already spent that and more on Christian Benteke, it remains to be seen if Steve Parish and co. feel the same is needed again in a season in which the Eagles have struggled so far.
