Wilfried Zaha Admits His Head Was All Over the Place After Failed Crystal Palace Exit

​Crystal Palace winger Wilfried Zaha has admitted that he struggled to deal with the realisation that he would not be sold during the summer.

The Ivorian expressed a desire to leave Palace ahead of the current season in order to realise his dream of playing European football, with Arsenal, Everton, Bayern Munich and Napoli all linked at points during the transfer window. However, Palace apparently held out for upwards of £80m to part ways with their talisman, which prevented a deal from being reached.

Speaking to ​BBC Africa, ​Zaha - who has no goals and just one assist in his first eight games for Palace in 2019/20 - confessed that all the drama during the summer made it incredibly hard for him to focus, while he struggled to deal with the fact that he would not be playing his football elsewhere this season.

He said: "I had to put my head down and play my football. I would have been hindering my own progress by moaning and not wanting to perform properly. I have too much respect for my manager, the fans and my team-mates to treat them that way. It was a thing where 'OK, this hasn't happened but I've got to get on with it'.

"I've got to prove every time that I'm the top player I claim to be so I had to get over that quickly. Obviously my head was a bit all over the place at the beginning of the season but I had to nail down and just get on with it because the team deserved that.

"I'm seeing how it goes. I'm a ​Crystal Palace player and I'm just trying to perform to the best of my ability for my club. I'm not thinking about anything else and just taking each day as it comes."

However, according to the Daily Mail, Zaha may have other things on his mind as he is preparing to sue his agent over his failure to negotiate a transfer during the summer.

He fears that his agent, Will Salthouse of Unique Sports Management, is too close to Palace chairman Steve Parish, and he believes that his representatives were reluctant to actually negotiate his move away from the club as a result.

Zaha has attempted to leave his agent in the aftermath of the whole situation and has decided to sue Salthouse over his failure to listen to his wishes during the summer.

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