David Moyes eventually had to part ways with one of the rare good performers of the club this season as reportedly Crystal Palace’s bid for defender Patrick Van Aanholt has been finally accepted and the full-back is expected to have a medical soon.
The Eagles will have to pay £12m up front with an extra £2m in add-ons. A move to Palace is not something uncalled for as the side-back has been a great admirer of Sam Allardyce and was reportedly unhappy under Moyes’ tutelage.
The 26-year-old Dutch defender joined the Stadium of Light back in 2014 for a sum of 1.5 million pounds. The player leaves for more than four times the price he was bought, making huge profits for the cash-crunched Sunderland, who have been struggling to buy players in the transfer window.
Van Aanholt is only the fourth Sunderland player in the last six years to be bought and sold on for a profit. He follows Darren Bent, Simon Mignolet and James McClean in becoming profit-making transfers for the club. Moyes has already brought in Joleon Lescott for defensive reinforcements and we expect more faces to arrive with the cash earned by Aanholt’s sale.
Aanholt becomes Palace’s second signing of the winter transfer window with Leicester City’s Jefferey Schlupp the first. Allardyce has been brought at Selhurst Park to help the club survive the relegation as he did successfully with Sunderland last season and although nothing has changed for the better since his arrival, the outlook of the transfers look positive.
The former Chelsea defender has been one of the significant players for Sunderland in their terrible season so far. He is their third highest scorer and his knack for going on the offensive despite being a defender could make him an important asset in Crystal Palace’s run to survive relegation. Aanholt is adept in playing out of his natural position as a left-back or even as a wing-back.
Allardyce has been experimenting with wing-backs lately to find a more effective approach for the underconfident side. And having a rock-solid presence like Aanholt at the back with Scott Dann and James Tomkins could come in real handy for Palace.
Palace’s defenders have been scoring this season with five goals among Dann and Tomkins. And the addition of Aanholt, who has is quite effective from set pieces owing to his strong built and has an eye for scoring goals, having already netted three times for Sunderland this season, will definitely add a different dimension to the Eagles’ attack.
