This is hardly a ringing endorsement.
Crystal Palace smashed their club record transfer fee to sign Christian Benteke from Liverpool, but his new teammate Damien Delaney doesn’t sound like he’s exactly jumping for joy.
The Irish defender was asked about the potential impact of Palace’s new striker, signed for £27m. Despite the London side failing to score so-far this season and previous first-choice forward Connor Wickham failing to convince, Delaney doesn’t sound too excited about Benteke joining Palace’s ranks.
“We’re not signing [Lionel] Messi, he’s a good player but he’s not a player who is going to get the ball and make things happen,” Delaney told The Evening Standard.
“We’ve got to work on the midfield players, wide players, defenders, full-backs and have better service and a better way about us.”
“He brings a presence, he’s a handful, but Connor Wickham is as well. It’s time we stop talking about things and go and win games.”
It’s probably a good thing Delaney stopped talking when he did, or it would’ve made for an awkward first week of training for Benteke at Palace.
There appears to a certain, largely skewed, revisionism of Benteke as a player. The Belgian scored 49 goals in 101 games for Aston Villa, who struggled in the Premier League during his time at Villa Park, and were relegated when he left.
He didn’t set the world alight at Liverpool, but he was hardly a flop in the manner of Mario Balotelli, and was merely deemed unsuited to Jurgen Klopp’s style of play.
He may not be Lionel Messi, but he has a vastly superior record to Wickham and seems ideally fitted to Palace.
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