Goals All That's Missing for 'Unrestricted' Eze as He Faces Former Club Palace

Always thankful, man, that’s how I experience – that will be me for life,” mused Eberechi Eze on his spell at Crystal Palace during an interview with fellow footballer Ian Wright. The Arsenal legend, another south Londoner who completed the move at the same age – 27 – back in 1991, seemed the ideal person to share what Eze described as “the realization of a prayer we started 20 years ago as a family.”

However for a minor group of Palace fans with long memories, it rekindled unpleasant emotions about an incident that took place at Highbury in May 1993.

Wright had not held back after netting Arsenal’s decisive goal on his first outing against Steve Coppell’s side at Selhurst Park a few months earlier – “I celebrated because Palace fans were being unpleasant,” he later clarified – and further soured the relationship by touching the badge when he gave his team the lead in a match his old side desperately needed to win to escape relegation. “After I scored I remember Nigel Martyn remarking: ‘Wrighty, what are you doing? You’re going to send us down,’” he remembered.

In 2006, a 42-year-old and former Wright, who had recently been chosen as Palace’s greatest ever, helped to bury the hatchet with those who held resentment by kissing the Palace badge after scoring in a charity match organized for his former teammate Geoff Thomas. “We had our problems for a while but I think we’ve worked them out now,” he said, even if some still to disagree.

For Eze, who on Sunday faces Palace for the first time since his multi-million pound transfer, there are no such problems. As the player who netted the goal that secured Palace’s first major trophy in the Wembley showpiece in May, he will always have a unique place in the club’s legacy. That was part of an extraordinary run Wright would have been proud of, Eze netting six goals in his final eight Premier League games and three in the FA Cup after scoring his first England goal against Latvia in March.

Such sparkling form played a key role in persuading Arsenal to outbid Tottenham for the signature of the player they turned down as a teenager, although Eze has yet to score for them in the league despite going into this weekend having taken the joint-most shots (18, equal with Nottingham Forest’s Morgan Gibbs-White) without finding the net. That includes an appearance for Palace against Chelsea on the opening day when his free-kick was controversially disallowed after Marc Guéhi was adjudged to have been less than one metre from the wall as the shot was taken.

A solitary strike against Port Vale in the Carabao Cup is a disappointing return from 10 appearances for Arsenal, including seven starts. It is perhaps partly explained by the fact that Eze has mostly been used in a No 10 role that he last occupied at Queens Park Rangers rather than in a deeper role on the left of the attack, where he was deployed by Oliver Glasner at Palace and which often meant he was able to get on the end of Daniel Muñoz’s crosses, as in the final against Manchester City at Wembley.

“As long as I’m on the pitch and I’m given the opportunity to play and show my skills in that environment then it doesn’t matter where I play,” Eze said in his interview with Wright. “Of course [the manager] has plans and things he wants. But for me, I’m free, man.”

Mikel Arteta’s reaction to feedback that he played with the caution in Arsenal’s 1-1 draw with City last month, when Eze came off the bench to set up Gabriel Martinelli’s equaliser, has been to entrust Eze with filling in for the injured captain, Martin Ødegaard, as the playmaker. It has coincided with six straight victories. Another Eze goal against Latvia this month and his outstanding performance against Atlético Madrid in midweek have offered encouraging signs that the goals will soon start to come for him at Arsenal.

But if his Palace statistics are anything to go by, that is more probable to happen in the new year. Eze has scored nine goals in 68 Premier League games before 31 December at a ratio of 0.13 compared with 25 in 85 (0.34) after. At the start of last season, he scored against Chelsea in August after having another free-kick disallowed controversially in the opening game against Brentford and had to wait until 29 December for his second.

Whereas Guéhi was blocked his move to Liverpool at the last minute this summer, Glasner is understood not to have opposed Eze’s exit because he felt it gave Palace an chance to reallocate the club record fee. Palace have the highest xG of any Premier League club, Yéremy Pino having stepped into Eze’s role since arriving from Villarreal, although the Spain international has yet to score or register an assist in the league despite some encouraging performances. Christantus Uche, who arrived on deadline day on an initial loan from the Spanish side Getafe and must start 10 matches for Palace to activate a £17m permanent move, was left out of the squad to face Bournemouth after arriving late back from international duty with Nigeria last week and has played only 57 minutes.

A swift reunion with players with whom Eze made a historic achievement for Palace in May will make Sunday an emotional occasion for him. He told Wright, who had to wait until he was 34 to win the title in his final season at Arsenal, that the FA Cup victory had given him the taste for trophies.

“I’ve seen what you can do, not just for your colleagues or the staff,” he said. “But I can see what you can do to people when you win and you bring that kind of joy to a place. That’s my aim.”

Just don’t anticipate him to express joy if he scores against Palace.