Chairman Steve Parish breaks silence on Wilfried Zaha’s contract situation and makes special admission

Crystal Palace are working behind the scenes to ensure they keep Wilfried Zaha at the club beyond his current contract.

The Ivory Coast international is seen as a special symbol of the club and represents both their short and long term goals.

Zaha came through the academy and even though he had a brief unsuccessful spell at Manchester United, he returned to Selhurst to make a career for himself.

This season, despite a slow start, he is currently enjoying his best goal scoring form for the club with 11 Premier League goals and assists to show for it.

He also scored in the battering of Everton to send Palace to the FA Cup semi-final at Wembley where they lost to Chelsea.

In the past, the forward had always expressed a desire to move to a club where he would try and fight for a title or play in the Champions League again.

But his age and the current growth of Palace under Vieira has meant his priority is now to stay and help the team grow.

The South London club has a big decision to make on the current crop of players with most of the senior players running out of contract at the moment.

While midfield powerhouse Cheikhou Kouyaté and James McArthur are both running out of contract this summer.

Captain Luka Milivojević, Jordan Ayew and Nathaniel Clyne are all eyeing new deals while Zaha has just barely 12 months left.

But Steve Parish is in no doubt that the first priority is to work to get Zaha renewed and then climb from there.

The Crystal Palace chairman told South London Press after the defeat to Chelsea at Wembley: “We love Wilfried to bits, but that is a situation that we will discuss with him and his people.

“We will try and find the right answer for everybody at the right time.”

The decision the club will take in the next transfer window will be pivotal to the drive of the club with links to Arsenal’s Eddie Nketiah continuing to grow after the forward grabbed a brace against Chelsea.

The situation of players like Christian Benteke, reported as one of the high earners at the club but hasn’t played or contributed as much, will also be up for discussion.

During the January transfer window there had been reports that Burnley were quite keen on him but he chose to stay on and fight for his position, so it will be interesting to see if he sticks around or twists for another adventure.

Palace have lost all their last three games and will have a big response when they take Leeds United at Selhurst on Monday night.