Crystal Palace did not earn the result it wanted on Boxing Day against London rivals Fulham, but American defender Chris Richards will have some added confidence following his return to action.
Richards made his first appearance since August 27 on Monday despite Crystal Palace’s 3-0 London Derby defeat to Fulham at Selhurst Park. The 22-year-old made the move to England on a permanent transfer from Bayern Munich this past summer and had totaled five appearances for Crystal Palace before a lengthy spell on the sidelines.
Richards played the final 30 minutes for Crystal Palace, which finished the match with nine men due to red cards to Tyrick Mitchell and James Tomkins. It was the centerback’s third appearance in which he registered 30 minutes or more for the club.
“It was an up-and-down battle, it was an injury that I have dealt with a lot this season so I was looking forward to having that behind me,” Richards said in a club interview postmatch. “Unfortunately it happened during the time of the World Cup so I knew I wouldn’t be able to perform there. It was tough missing all of the games, but I am hoping to have a strong end to the year and hopefully not have any games like this today [in terms of the result].”
Richards made four clearances in his substitute appearance, while also making four passes.
Crystal Palace next travels to Bournemouth on New Years Eve before hosting Tottenham on Jan. 4. Richards could also make his first FA Cup start as the Eagles host Southampton on Jan. 7.
Hope he gets a genuine opportunity to start. This year’s been a giant waste for him so far.
The injury didn’t help but he wasn’t getting much time before that (and even when he did it was often at right back), to the point I really did not understand why CP even bought him. Dude was a Bayern product and had spent all year starting with Hoffenheim and excelling…so let’s spend $15 million on the guy while indicating we’re going to play three in the back…and then not do that and bench him? Okay. I’m sure that’s why he came to Crystal Palace, rock on, guys. Definitely struck me as a fairly glaring indication the front office and the manager were maybe not on the same page.
Just goes to show, every move you make is always a gamble, and if the manager doesn’t have you in his plans, you could be marking time until you find an escape. See Pulisic for Exhibit A of that.
his problem hasn’t been his quality or that the manager doesn’t rate him, we know Viera rates him, Richards’ problem is he can’t stay healthy and it’s been an issue at 3 different clubs.
$15 million is nothing for an EPL team. Some of them spend that much on a player to fill out their bench. Nevertheless, someone starting in the Bundesliga should get more of a chance with a mid level team like CP.
For a team in the top 6 or so, sure, but the rest of the Prem…no. It’s a lot even for a mid-table team like CP, and it’s crazy money for a bench player in the bottom half. Transfermarkt has already dropped Richards’ value to €12.00, but even with that there are only 7 guys on CP’s roster with higher transfer values.
The problem is, two of them are the other two starting CB’s, Marc Guehi (€35 million), and Joachim Anderson (€32 million) who are rated as the two most-valuable players on the squad. Which again begs the question…when you have those two, why throw out another €15 million for a third CB if you aren’t going to play three in the back? Left me scratching my head. I mean, their two starting center-forwards only have transfer market values of €9 million and €6 million (which together is what they paid for Richards), you’d think there’d be a LOT of better uses for that kind of money.
Viera said good things about him this week, would have been nice if he could have gotten a start with Guehi suspended but probably wasn’t 90 mins fit.
Hopefully it has been injuries and not fit, but my concern was, he wasn’t playing much even before he got hurt and he got zero minutes in the two matches prior to his injury. Here’s hoping he finds his footing, because when he actually played for us he very much looked like our future at the position…athletic, intelligent, calm, and so smooth on the ball and clean in distribution.
I really did not like seeing him not playing. Ream’s re-emergence at age 35 really bailed us out but can you imagine if we’d had to start Long?
Good to see he got some minutes and is healthy. Keep working hard.