A year ago Arsenal and Everton were legitimate targets, while Tottenham were also lurking. But remaining in England at the standard Zaha believes he should feature is looking increasingly unlikely.
Arsenal, for a start, have other players for those positions. Nicolas Pepe and Willian will compete for a start on the right, with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (contract extension pending) and Bukayo Saka preferred on the left, while Gabriel Martinelli, very highly regarded within the club, is also able to play from either side. In truth, it doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for Zaha, while Arsenal have transfer priorities in other areas.
Everton were extremely keen last summer and were clearly put off not only by the outlay but the Yannick Bolasie transfer from a few seasons prior which also proved disastrous. Now, Carlo Ancelotti must sell before he can acquire any new players and that’s likely to mean one huge signing simply won’t happen.
As for Tottenham, they could theoretically still be on the lookout for a wide player, but any links have gone cold and Jose Mourinho has turned his attention to other areas, such as central midfield.
; ; PSG have, well, Neymar, while Monaco have a gigantic squad of over 50 players which needs massively trimmed before business can be done.
All things considered, there’s not much out there for Zaha, and are there other factors at play? Firstly, he’s 27, 28 in November. It may not seem old, but a number of clubs hold sell-on value as a key attribute in their recruitment strategy and a player ticking past 30 drastically reduces in value. Certainly for a side like Dortmund, it doesn’t seem to fit their organisational structure.
But perhaps there’s a more pertinent problem, one that is more difficult to solve; we’ve already seen the best of Zaha.
He shoots less (2.3 P90 down to 1.7), he hits the target less (1.0 P90 down to 0.5) and while he is completing as many dribbles as ever (4.3 P90 in 2019/20, third-highest in the Premier League), and of those successful dribbles, 22 led to a shot, none led directly to a goal.
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Odds correct at 1200 BST (22/08/20)
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