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WHY CRYSTAL PALACE IS MICHY BATSHUAYI’S HOME FROM HOME


By Dominic Fifield and Matt Woosnam
Sep 15, 2020

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Michy Batshuayi was in familiar territory over the weekend. A player who has
grown used to watching on from the sidelines surveyed Crystal Palace’s opening
day victory over Southampton from the discomfort of the substitutes’ bench, the
only novelty stemming from a slightly tweaked vantage point. He and his fellow
replacements were perched further up Selhurst Park’s main stand as part of the
socially distanced “new normal”.

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There were a few shuttle runs and stretches down the touchline, but no summons
from the management. Batshuayi’s second coming in these parts will have to wait.
He will play in the Carabao Cup second round tie at Bournemouth, where Palace’s
team will be a strange blend of first-team fringe players in need of minutes and
personnel from the development squad. But it is in the Premier League that the
Chelsea loanee is most eager to make his mark: perhaps at Old Trafford on
Saturday, or maybe at home to Everton the following week. Not, regrettably,
against his parent club in early October.

Regardless of when the chance comes, his impatience to play is palpable. “I need
to do a good season here,” Batshuayi had offered up to the club’s in-house media
team upon signing last week. “I feel like I’m home now. I had a lot of other
clubs (interested), but my head is here so everything is right and happy now.”

There had been tentative interest expressed from elsewhere. Leeds United, whose
head coach Marcelo Bielsa oversaw one of Batshuayi’s two productive seasons at
Marseille, had sounded out the player’s representative, Meissa N’Diaye, about a
possible reunion. Those “other clubs” included Newcastle United, West Bromwich
Albion and Aston Villa, all in the market for a striker this summer. But all,
bar West Brom, opted for costly alternatives — Rodrigo at Leeds, Callum Wilson
at Newcastle and Ollie Watkins at Villa. His options appeared limited

The fear was he might end up priced out of the market due to Chelsea’s asking
price and Batshuayi’s wage demands. As a result, a player who only last month
had been adamant he had no interest in another loan move — after stints at
Borussia Dortmund, Valencia and Palace yielded only 22 starts — belatedly
appreciated his stance might have to shift if he was to feature regularly this
season.

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Batshuayi and his representatives reached out to Palace and floated the idea of
a season-long return. The appeal was obvious. The 26-year-old is familiar with
the club, the manager and his team-mates, and knows he fits in and can excel in
their colours. He could live at home in a city he loves and easily commute into
the Beckenham training ground. There would be no personal upheaval. Palace,
juggling options this window as they seek to revitalise Roy Hodgson’s squad,
considered the unexpected proposal and decided to be pragmatic. There was a
certain logic to pursuing a short-term fix, which would allow them to target
other areas for strengthening.

What had only recently appeared an unlikely marriage of convenience suddenly
felt more attractive to all parties.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For Batshuayi, the alternative was unthinkable. Life in limbo on the periphery
at Stamford Bridge, with a career on hold, would jeopardise his chances of
featuring for Belgium at next summer’s rearranged European Championships. It was
time, yet again, for a change.

He has had his moments at Chelsea since joining for £33.2 million from Marseille
back in 2016, most notably scoring the goal that claimed Antonio Conte’s team
the title at the end of his first season at the club, but his involvement has
invariably been from the fringes. A year ago, on the back of five goals in 11
Premier League games on loan at Palace (at a rate of 0.6 goals per 90 minutes),
his parent club had valued him at £40 million: a bullish price to cover their
investment and reflect Chelsea’s inability to purchase a replacement given they
were under a transfer ban.

Regardless, he still aspired to justify that eye-watering valuation and there
was a period last season when he was ahead of Olivier Giroud as Tammy Abraham’s
first-choice understudy at Stamford Bridge. He scored the only goal in a
19-minute cameo at Ajax in the Champions League group stage, a belter from
distance in a League Cup defeat to Manchester United and, more often than not,
was involved off the bench. He felt part of the set-up as Frank Lampard found
his feet.





But all that changed with a fitful display on his only league start of term,
against United in February, in the absence of the injured Abraham. Isolated and
uncomfortable in the system, he laboured to make an impact. Where he struggled,
Giroud thrived. The Frenchman seized his opportunity when called upon from the
bench. He was aggressive and unsettled a previously resolute United defence to
restate his credentials. He would start the next five matches while Abraham
recovered from his ankle complaint. Batshuayi managed only another 18 minutes of
action, and 224 over the entire league campaign.

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Indeed, his star fell so far that he only made the bench twice post-lockdown
when teams could name nine substitutes. Timo Werner had already been signed for
£53 million in anticipation for the campaign ahead and there was a new one-year
contract for Giroud, who had even ousted Abraham to become first-choice
throughout the run-in. Batshuayi, too inconsistent and unpredictable for
comfort, was the forgotten man. Perhaps his easy-going character, forever
laughing and joking, painted him as a figure of fun. Regardless, the message was
clear: the Belgian had no future at Chelsea.

By the time he returned to Cobham last month for pre-season, he was into the
final 10 months of his £110,000-a-week contract and had clearly been earmarked
as one to trim from Chelsea’s bloated squad. The chance of securing a deal quite
so opulent at a future employer in this financial climate always felt unlikely,
not least given the nomadic nature of his career. When his preparations were
further disrupted by a period in quarantine, initially casting him from Roberto
Martinez’s Belgium squad, it was clear something had to give.

N’Diaye spoke with Marina Granovskaia and, with no offers of a permanent move on
the table, mooted a possible loan. Safe-guarding an asset who could otherwise
leave for nothing next summer, the club indicated they would countenance that
arrangement if he signed a 12-month extension through to the summer of 2022. By
the time Batshuayi was scoring twice against Iceland for Belgium in the Nations
League last week, having been restored to the fold for the injured Yannick
Carrasco, negotiations were underway on all fronts to kick-start his club career
once again.


Batshuayi struck twice for Belgium last week (Photo: John Thys/AFP via Getty
Images)

The talks dragged through the next 48 hours, the hold-up more about the
extension than the loan transfer away, before the deal was signed and the
immediate move sanctioned.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For Palace, the Belgian’s sudden availability solved a problem. A team who had
mustered only 31 league goals last season was desperate to find a cutting edge.
They had tried to woo Watkins only to see him reunite with his former Brentford
manager Dean Smith at Villa Park. Early indications were that Celtic’s Odsonne
Edouard would be out of their price range, too. Batshuayi was not an option on a
permanent deal, given he would have cost an eight-figure transfer fee and at
least a three-year contract on hefty wages, but he felt far more appealing as a
loan.

They duly shifted tack overnight, ditching a move for the young Chelsea
midfielder Conor Gallagher — a club can only secure one player on loan from
another Premier League side — to pursue the forward. Palace’s talks with
Granovskaia were relatively straightforward. The deal contains an option to buy
next summer, believed to be set at an optimistic £30 million, but no obligation
to make the move permanent. The hope was the player would assimilate seamlessly
back at the club, with Palace’s squad virtually identical to that with whom he
impressed back in 2019.

“That’ll make things easier for him,” Hodgson tells The Athletic. “We’ve spoken
a lot about players like Eberechi Eze coming in from the Championship, and it’s
harder for someone coming in totally from the outside. Michy does know most of
the players here already.

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“There hasn’t been that sort of turnover in our club, and he’ll recognise the
guys he left behind a year ago. So he’s very happy to be back. We’re delighted
to have him. He’s the type of forward we’ve been looking for to solve a problem
we’ve had in terms of that forward area. Someone who will score the goals, take
the chances we create. He trained for the first time with us last Friday and,
quite frankly, he looked as if he’d never been away.”

Yes, securing a striker for the long term remains an issue. Palace retain an
interest in Liverpool’s Rhian Brewster and still aspire to add more to their
attacking ranks this summer. Said Benrahma, more of a winger or playmaker, is
still expected to leave Brentford and is also being touted to prospective
buyers. For now, Batshuayi is a natural finisher whose qualities are
established. Hodgson has faith in him and knows what he can offer. Memories are
still fresh from the spring of 2019 when the loanee excelled, with Christian
Benteke misfiring, Connor Wickham injured and Alexander Sorloth loaned to Ghent.

Frequently flanked by Andros Townsend and Wilfried Zaha in a 4-3-3, he added an
extra dimension to Palace’s attacking play with his quick thinking opportunism
setting him apart. It was showcased in an FA Cup quarter-final defeat at Watford
when he seized upon Adrian Mariappa’s hesitation and converted beyond Heurelho
Gomes, and with his clever and very deliberate touch to deflect James McArthur’s
long-range shot beyond Kasper Schmeichel in a riotous win at Leicester City. He
was a constant menace that evening as the visitors’ 4-1 success curtailed Claude
Puel’s coaching career in English football.



His expected goals per 90 minutes over that stint in south London was 0.47,
higher than that mustered by any other Palace forward or midfielder to have
played at least 500 minutes since the 2015-16 campaign. His eagerness to shoot —
albeit sometimes wildly and speculatively — also contrasts with those attackers
at the club over that period. He creates opportunities for himself, taking shots
early to wrong-foot opponents, and averaged 3.21 attempts per 90 minutes in that
four-month loan spell. Those closest to matching that rate, Bakary Sako (2.90)
and Benteke (2.73), were some way behind.

There was a blistering finish at Turf Moor, supplied by the overlapping Aaron
Wan-Bissaka and drilled beyond Tom Heaton, which illustrated the cleverness of
his positioning, seeking out a yard of space in the penalty area. Against
Cardiff City and Bournemouth, teams whose defences had gone walkabout, he
enjoyed a field day in the campaign’s closing weeks. The hope is he will thrive
in Hodgson’s adopted 4-4-1-1, where Zaha is afforded a looser, more fluid role
as a second striker drifting wide to the left, from where he scored the winner
against Southampton. Batshuayi will occupy defenders in the penalty area and
invite Zaha and Eze to provoke havoc around him.

He was, and remains, a hugely popular figure in the dressing-room thanks to his
upbeat and charismatic personality. Batshuayi’s relationship with Zaha, a player
Palace are keen to keep happy for obvious reasons, is positive on and off the
pitch. The coaching staff at Chelsea and Valencia grew frustrated at his shoddy
timekeeping, and Conte questioned whether he was tactically cute enough to play
as a lone forward in the Italian’s 3-4-3.

He can appear rough around the edges even now, after a 10-year professional
career spent at six clubs in five countries. He may forever be the player who
picked up the ball as it rebounded out of the net, volleyed it on to the post in
celebration and was then poleaxed by the rebound. Given he is 26, he may never
be truly polished.

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But, fit, focused and on form, he is a handful. In so many ways, his chaotic
presence and shoot-on-sight policy are exactly what Palace require. That seat in
the stand may only be temporarily occupied. Batshuayi has found his home from
home.

(Top photo: Alex Livesey/Getty Images)




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