Crystal Palace’s summer signing Cheick Doucoure was brought in to play as a ‘deep-lying playmaker’, according to The Sun journalist Tom Barclay. The highly-rated 22-year-old arrived from RC Lens last month following an outstanding 2021/22 campaign with the French outfit, earning himself a move to the Premier League.
Sky Sports reported in July that Palace had secured the signature of the midfielder after paying Lens an initial £18 million for Doucoure with the fee potentially rising to £21m in add-ons.
The Mali international joins winger Malcolm Ebiowei, goalkeeper Sam Johnstone and versatile defender Chris Richards as the new arrivals in Patrick Vieira’s first-team squad. “I’m very happy, I feel a lot of joy and a lot of pride to be a Palace player,” Doucoure told club media upon his arrival. “I’m proud to be at Palace today.” Palace chairman Steve Parish added: “Cheick’s arrival is yet another statement of intent, demonstrating our ambition to further improve the squad this summer.” When asked if Palace needed to bring in a defensive midfielder alongside Doucoure, Barclay informed GiveMeSport that he is ‘not sure about that’ and urged people to give him time.
In an interview with GMS, he said: “I mean, I’m not sure on that. It’s only one game, he’s a new player to the league, so you’ve got to give him a bit of time. “But my understanding was that Doucoure was going to come in and be more of a deep-lying playmaker so they could play in a slightly different way, dictate possession a bit more compared to when they’ve had Kouyate or Milivojevic in that role over the years.” Doucoure racked up a very respectable five goal contributions in 34 Ligue 1 appearances from a largely defensive-minded role at the base of the Lens