With a misfiring attack, Crystal Palace’s defence has been relied upon heavily this season under Oliver Glasner.
Of all the troubles facing the Eagles this season, the defence should be low on the priority list.
Oliver Glasner has coached his side to a better defensive record than any of the other relegation contenders.
With 15 goals against, Crystal Palace have conceded fewer goals than any club from 14th down (with 13th-placed Manchester United conceding 12).
A failure to replace Michael Olise effectively has plagued the attack which struggles to create very many chances – making a creative attacker one of the big targets in January.
Additionally, Crystal Palace are expected to want a new striker – with Jean-Philippe Mateta’s contract situation still unclear.
But despite the glaring needs up front, defenders are consistently being linked with the Eagles.
Dougie Freedman still wants to sign Rav van den Berg
In the past few weeks, we have seen links with Tomas Araujo reemerge. Along with this, Terry Yegbe from Elfsborg has been linked.
Now, an exciting Championship-based defender has been linked – 10 months after initial links were surfaced.
It is according to Football Insider, that Crystal Palace are now ready to move for Rav van den Berg from Middlesbrough.The Eagles are among several clubs to be tracking the versatile Boro central defender, making regular checks on him over the last 18 months.
Now, the club are gearing up to test the Championship side’s resolve in January for their 2023/24 player of the season.
This follows reports back in February that Crystal Palace wanted to sign Van den Berg. But what would this move mean for the Eagles?Oliver Glasner would love Rav van den Berg at Crystal Palace
In terms of centre-half qualities, Van den Berg boasts some of the major qualities that Glasner would want from a new central defender.
The amount of defenders being linked suggests that we could see an exit in January for Marc Guehi – with Van den Berg as a possible successor.
One huge quality Van den Berg has is his versatility, which Michael Carrick told Teesside Live, is something that cannot be coached.
“When he played left-back and right-back, he’d never played there before, but he just took it in his stride. That’s something you can’t really coach. It comes down to the characteristics of the individual, and he certainly can deal with different situations.”
Van den Berg earns £2,000-a-week, meaning his contract at Selhurst Park would be unlikely to break the bank.
He boasts a 91.3 per cent pass completion (95th percentile among his peers) rate which could see him fit into Glasner’s ideal vision of his defence.
It would be a project for Glasner to turn Van den Berg into an elite Premier League player – just as he has helped Adam Wharton do since his arrival in February.
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