A-W: The Premier League’s signings to watch
Week 8— Crystal Palace
After a wild Winter Olympics that was full controversy (who knew curling was so exciting?!) we’re injecting a bit of summery, Spanish flair into things as we take a look into Crystal Palace’s marquee summer signing — Yeremy Pino.
Pino was one of five summer signings for Crystal Palace, who waited until the last four days of the transfer window to do most of their transfer business:
Maybe Glasner and Parish just love deadline day.
Hailing from Las Islas Canarias, he joined Las Palmas’ academy in 2014 before joining Villareal in 2017.
He spent eight years with Villareal making 154 appearances and scoring 17 goals for the senior team.
At El Submarino Amarillo he became the youngest Spanish player to start a major European final, aged 18 years and 218 days when he played in the 2021 Europa League Final.
Pino and Villareal would eventually emerge victorious after an incredibly long penalty shootout (11–10).
Pino’s transfer also brought to light the sheer financial power Premier League clubs have compared to other European sides:
Pino was never going to stay at Villareal forever, but moving from an incredibly successful, European trophy winning side to a mid-table team should ring alarm bells.
He joined Glasner’s Palace (which sounds cooler than it is) for £26 million and replaced Eberechi Eze as Palace’s number 10.
Talk about big boots to fill.
His adaptation to Premier League football has been slow, with only three G/A in the league so far this season — where goals came against Wolves and Sunderland.
In cup competitions however, he’s been a bit more productive, providing two assists in the Conference League, and scored against Liverpool in their 3–0 win in the Carabao Cup.
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It’s now time to take a look into how his season compares to former Palace star Eze:
As we can see and as mentioned above, Pino had big boots to fill — and he’s yet to hit the ground running the same way Eze has for Arteta’s side.
Obviously Eze now plays for one of the best teams in the league and is surrounded by some of the best players in the country, which will help platform his creativity and ability to succeed.
Pino’s 3.9 xG in the 10 position suggests he should be scoring far more than he has been, but is also being let down by his team-mates as he has almost four xA, yet only has one assist.
His player pizza doesn’t exactly impress either — his passing threat stands out, as do his shot assists and xA stats, but his attacking actions leave much to be desired.
Pino clearly likes to let the ball do the work, demonstrated by his low dribbling and carrying stats, and his shooting stats do show some promise.
There is potential for Pino to thrive in a ‘double 10’ system that Glasner has been using this season, as it takes the pressure off of him to be a main creator.
He also loves to cut inside and bend shots into the far corner (à la Coutinho). However the reverse shot to the near post (à la Mbappé) is also a favourite.
Pino also hasn’t been helped by the mess that’s happening at the South London club.
There was the Marc Guehi saga, Glasner is leaving at the end of the season and let’s not get started on the fact that Palace should be in the Europa League this season.
But all this hasn’t stopped Palace fans from appreciating their new Spanish number 10:
March hasn’t started well for the Spanish midfielder though, only featuring for five minutes in the loss to Manchester United, he didn’t even come on against Spurs and was introduced in the 87th minute against AEK Larnaca last night.
Pino is yet to truly make his mark in the Premier League, and with Glasner leaving, it raises a lot of questions on his future at Crystal Palace.
Next, we take a look at Everton’s Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall.
