If Chelsea bid £75m for Zaha, Crystal Palace will accept — report

The Mirror continue to push their Zaha-to-Chelsea story, despite specific and strong denials to the contrary from Crystal Palace manager Roy Hodgson on talkSport on Friday.

Hodgson claims that Zaha has given him no indication about a potential exit; on the contrary, the winger is supposedly very excited for the new season, especially with Palace making signings like young German international Max Meyer.

But the Mirror are undeterred and claim that Zaha “believes he’s done his time at Palace” and has set himself a goal of playing in the Champions League. While neither Chelsea nor Palace are in the Champions League this season, Zaha believes that he would have a better chance of accomplishing that goal at Chelsea than at Palace. He’s probably not wrong.

Assuming that Zaha does actually want to leave — and previously the Mirror claimed that he’d at least consider a transfer request — Chelsea would have to break the club record to sign him. Crystal Palace have set an asking price of £75m — is that all? — but they “will do a deal” if we stump up the cash.

With less than five days to go in the transfer window, this seems a rather unlikely proposition, but that’s why we call it Silly Season.