Crystal Palace: Mike Tresor could be ideal Zaha replacement
Crystal Palace’s search for Wilfried Zaha’s replacement appears to have stepped up a notch in what is an exciting development for the Eagles.
While Zaha has yet to officially make a decision on his future, the long-serving winger has been widely tipped to depart this summer, with Atletico Madrid one of the higher-profile teams in for his signature.
Palace already have other talented attacking wide players in their ranks, such as Michael Olise and Eberechi Eze, but losing an iconic member of their squad will still be considered a blow.
An adequate replacement may be waiting in the wings, however, as Belgian publication Het Laatste Nieuws reports that Palace are ‘eyeing’ Genk’s Mike Tresor.
Is Mike Tresor good enough for the Premier League?
Tresor has already been linked with other Premier League sides such as Burnley, Brentford, Brighton and Hove Albion, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Nottingham Forest – and it is clear to see why.
The Belgium U21 international was crowned as the best player in the Belgian Jupiler Pro League last season after scoring eight goals and assisting a staggering 39.
In April, Tresor became the first player to assist 21 goals in one of the current top 10 European leagues since Lionel Messi (21 for Barcelona) and Thomas Muller (21 for Bayern Munich) in 2019-20, as per Opta.
As Sporting News writer Kyle Bonn put it, Tresor showed “Kevin De Bruyne levels” last season, with the pair likely to be international colleagues in the not-too-distant future.
It is easy to play down Tresor’s achievements given he plays in Belgium.
However, Global Football Rankings judges the Pro League as better than the Austrian Bundesliga, where many Premier League teams are happy to shop, and only marginally of lesser quality than the English Championship.
Tresor’s creativity will come in handy at Selhurst Park, should he make the leap in divisions, with his 0.66 assists per 90 – as per FBref – substantially higher than that of Zaha’s 0.08 in the Premier League.
There is little between the pair in terms of goals per 90 minutes last season (0.25 for Tresor and 0.28 for Zaha), which is also the case when it comes to percentage of shots on target (35.1 v 32.8).
An extra dimension Tresor can bring to Palace is his crossing ability, averaging as he does 7.37 per 90. To give that some further context, Zaha managed 1.54 in the 2022/23 season.
Whoever is brought in to replace Zaha ultimately has huge boots to fill, but it may well be that Belgian bargain buy Tresor – valued at as little as £4m by Football Observatory – is as good a choice as any to do exactly that.