Crystal Palace boss heaps praise on Ghanaian forward

Crystal Palace manager Roy Hodgson has expressed the pleasure of having Jordan Ayew in the club’s ranks during the recent league triumph over Huddersfield Town. The South London outfit picked up their second win of the campaign during their recent trip to Yorkshire and Ayew made a notable impact by providing the assist for Wilfried Zaha’s late winner.

Following the game, Hodgson was appreciative of the striker, who made his debut for the club after Christian Benteke sustained an injury, he said: “If we’re going to have the season we would like to have, you need quality players and when they’re not playing you miss them. I thought today we were fortunate to also play Jordan Ayew at centre-forward and bring Cheikhou Kouyate into the team. That served us well today and their work-rate, aggression and determination meant we were able to control large swathes of the game and keep the ball out of our box.”

“Ayew was the leading scorer for Swansea City during the previous campaign with 10 goals “across all competitions but his efforts were not sufficient to keep them in “the Premier League. Thereafter, “ there had been number of clubs that had expressed an interest in pursuing him but Palace eventually won the race by negotiating a season-long loan on transfer deadline day.

The temporary move is also said to include a buy option which could be triggered by Palace as early as the winter transfer window. Meanwhile, Palace have made a decent start to the season with six points from the first five matches and they now have the opportunity to jump further up the table when they entertain Newcastle United at Selhurst Park.Rafael Benitez’s side have looked rather defensive with their tactics since the season has begun and Palace should fancy their prospects of a picking up a second straight league win.