‘We do his dirty work for him’ – Palace ace reveals team works together to protect Zaha

by Andrew McSteen

Palace forward Wilfried Zaha is closing in on an unwanted statistic – just 12 more fouls against him this Premier League season will see him reach 100.

In fact, 29 more fouls will see him reach a ‘milestone’ of 500 since from the 2015/16 season onwards, but these statistics are only for when the referee whistles for unlawful play against the Ivory Coast international and a foul is recorded – with Eagles’ fans arguing that the highly-skilled player should have had a lot more than that.

And it is not just limited to fans, but his teammates too.

“He is the most talented and skilful player I have every played with – he’s an incredible, world-class player,” said Zaha’s teammate, fellow forward, Andros Townsend, to talkSPORT earlier this week.

“If I am an opposing team defender, or team, and I am not as good as Wilfried, then you are going to ask ‘how are we going to win this game? The answer is: stop Wilfried Zaha – ‘let’s kick him, let’s tackle him, let’s rugby tackle him, let’s get under his skin’ – and they do.

“Wilfried is starting to realise that, and he’s starting to learn to not let these teams get under his skin and, hopefully, he will be a better player for it.”

Outside of SE25, Zaha has been accused of everything from doing down too easily under pressure from opposing players right up to being called a diver or cheat but Townsend was quick to defend the 27-year-old who was through on goal against Newcastle on Saturday but was taken out by Valentino Lazaro, with the defender being shown a red card.

“I don’t think he gets enough protection from referees,” said Townsend. “He’s still got the reputation of a diver – it’s incredible. Some of the tackles, some of the fouls he’s been on the end of. He doesn’t even get free kicks, let alone yellow or red cards.

“Hopefully the turning point was on Saturday when he through on goal and he was just rugby tackled to the floor. The opponent got sent off and hopefully we can see more of those decisions where they are just literally going to stop the player as opposed to playing the ball.

“That’s definitely not the case,” said Townsend when asked about if his teammate goes down too easily. “This season, since VAR came in, you’ve seen an amount of decisions where the referee may not have given a free kick or a penalty, but VAR says it is a yellow or red card offence.

“It’s going to take more decisions like that to get Wilf more protection from the referee. If referees are making mistakes and they see, through VAR, that they’ve made a mistake maybe they think ‘right, maybe this player is not a diver, maybe he’s not overreacting, he’s not giving it more’.

“I think for Wilfried, if he’s getting kicked and fouled but opponents are getting yellow cards and he’s getting decision then he will be more at ease playing football and wouldn’t be so bothered, but at the moment he’s getting fouled and he’s not really getting much from it – I can sense his anger and disappointment.”

With pure frustration getting the better of the Ivorian at times, and an apparent lack of protection from the men in black, Townsend and his fellow teammates have stepped up to protect their own on the pitch.

“It does affect him,” he added. “He’s got in a lot of trouble with the referees – he’s been booked or sent off for arguing with them and for diving, so because he’s had so much trouble, we’ve now – as a team – taken it upon ourselves to do his arguing for him,” explained Townsend. “Maybe the captain will go first, but if he’s been booked, someone else will go. But as a team, we need to protect Wilf because he does get into a lot of trouble off the ball from the referees and opposing players and we need to protect him from that and do his dirty work for him.

“It’s fair enough [to receive a punishment] if you’re guilty, but if you’re not guilty it’s going to affect anybody – Wilfried’s no different.

“I think until we start giving him the protection from referees and VAR, he’s going to keep getting worked up about it.”