Wilfried Zaha's failed move to Arsenal left Gunners to rue "no brainer" transfer decision

Wilfried Zaha could feature for Crystal Palace against Arsenal on Monday night, but had things gone differently, he could have been lining up on the opposite side.

Zaha is touch-and-go to be fit for the 8pm kick-off at Selhurst Park after missing Cote d’Ivoire’s 3-0 defeat by England last week with a hamstring injury. The winger did not train with Palace on Thursday and manager Patrick Vieira admitted on Friday that he didn’t know “if it is a long-term problem”.

If he has overcome the injury then Zaha will face the side he came close to joining three years ago. The 29-year-old has frequently been linked with moves away from Palace over the past few years, but the transfer to Arsenal was more than mere speculation.

Back in the summer of 2019 Arsenal had money burning a hole in their pocket and wanted to spend it on a winger. Alex Iwobi was sold to Everton in a deal which could rise to £35million and Nicolas Pepe arrived in a club-record £72m move from Lille, where he had just put in an outstanding season.

But as Zaha revealed in an illuminating interview with Jamie Carragher back in January 2021, Pepe was only signed after Arsenal, and manager Unai Emery, had thought long and hard about the Crystal Palace man. "I had a conversation with the manager, actually," Zaha said on The Greatest Games podcast . "He was just like, ‘we don’t need to go through much’. He’s seen me play, he knows I can change games at any time and stuff like that. It was like, ‘yeah, we’d love to have you’.

“And I was just like ‘I’d love to come’. The conversation was rather straightforward because I’ve played against him when he’s managed Arsenal, he’s seen what I can do, he’s seen my work rate, what I can add to the team. Obviously, it was