2025 will forever be an historic year for Crystal Palace, but a crucial week or so in the transfer market awaits, if Oliver Glasner’s side are going to enjoy another strong season.

The Eagles had never won a major trophy before, but have now picked up two, defeating Manchester City in May’s FA Cup Final, before fighting back from behind twice to beat Liverpool on penalties in the FA Community Shield earlier this month.

As cup winners, Palace entered a major European competition for the very first time on Thursday night, facing Fredrikstad in the Conference League play-offs, prevailing 1-0 in the first leg at Selhurst Park, with Jean-Philippe Mateta the night’s only scorer.

So, advantage Palace, but work to do if they’re to oust the Norwegian Cup winners next Thursday and book their spot in the league phase.

Meantime, with Glasner’s star man departing, and other key players potentially set to follow, expect Steve Parish to be busy in the transfer market between now and the window closing on 1 September.

Crystal Palace's need for reinforcements

As has been widely reported, including by David Ornstein of the Athletic, Arsenal are poised to sign Eberechi Eze for around £67.5m, hijacking the deal, when it appeared as though the England international was going to join Tottenham instead.

From a Palace perspective, they’re losing their talisman, a player who scored 14 goals and registered 11 assists across all competitions last season, including scoring the opener in both the FA Cup semi-finals and final at Wembley.

Eze certainly will not be an easy man to replace, but have the Eagles identified their top target?

Well, according to Fabrizio Romano, Crystal Palace have Yéremy Pino on “their list of targets” to replace Eze, adding that a deal with Villarreal will not be easy to finalise.

Meantime, a report by the Guardian claims that signing Yéremy is their number one priority, noting that he has a £67m release clause, but Palace are very much ‘hoping to pay less’, making contact with the La Liga side who ‘are not keen on selling’.

To date, just four Spaniards have called Selhurst home, namely Vicente Guaita, Pablo Couñago, José Campaña and Víctor Camarasa, so could that extremely exclusive club be about to gain a new member?

What Pino would be a dream replacement for Eze

To date, Yéremy is a one-club man, joining Villarreal as a 15-year-old, making his senior debut in 2020, and accumulating 169 senior appearances for the Yellow Submarine to date.

By starting the 2021 Europa League Final, which his side won on penalties against Manchester United in Gdańsk, aged 19 years and 4 days at the time, he became the youngest player to win a UEFA club competition final.

Now 22, he’s continued to be a consistent performer for el Submarino Amarillo, who are back in the Champions League this season.

António Mango labels him a “unique talent”, while Ruairidh Barlow is impressed by his dribbling, creativity, intelligence and overall technical ability.

So, let’s assess how he compared to Eze last season.

Appearances

34

34

Minutes

1,950

2,603

Goals

4

8

Assists

8

8

All statistics below are on a per-90 basis:

Shots

0.8

2.2

Shots on target

0.5

1.1

Chances created

1.8

2

Big chances created

0.46

0.38

Forward passes

7.6

8.1

Take-ons completed

1.2

2.4

Take-on success %

50%

52%

Touches

49.3

54.9

Touches in opposition box

5.1

3.6

Average SofaScore rating

6.94

7.28

As the table outlines, while Eze does come out on top for the vast majority of attacking metrics included, there are some key stylistic similarities between the pair.

Both registered eight league assists, with the Spaniard creating marginally more big chances per 90, with the pair’s number of forward passes and their take-on success percentage nigh on identical.

Despite mustering fewer shots, Yéremy did rack up more touches in the opposition’s penalty area too, emphasising that he is a goal threat.

Thus, while all Palace supporters will be heartbroken about the news of Eze’s departure, and finding a replacement of equivalent quality will be pretty much impossible, Yéremy might just fit the bill.

Still only 22 years old, the Spain international also has plenty of room for improvement, so could he soon be strutting his stuff in South London?