Crystal Palace have been known to dip into the loan market every now and again to bring certain players to the club on a temporary basis, the most recent of which seeing Conor Gallagher arrive until the end of the current season from fellow Premier League side Chelsea.
One previous player that the Eagles brought in on loan from Chelsea was another midfielder in the shape of Ruben Loftus-Cheek.
Signed during the 2017 summer transfer window, the 26-year-old made 25 appearances in total for the south London club across the Premier League and Carabao Cup.
In those appearances, the Englishman, who has been likened in his style of play to Yaya Toure by Rio Ferdinand, managed to score two goals and provide five assists along the way, showing just how useful he could be in an attacking sense from midfield.
As well as his prowess in terms of scoring and creating goals, his overall performances earned him a solid season rating of 7.08 from WhoScored, making him the sixth-highest rated player in their squad for the 2017/18 league campaign, showing that he certainly made the most of his time with the Eagles.
In terms of what he offered Palace on the pitch, the Chelsea loanee racked up a pass success percentage of 82.4%, the third-highest of any player that started at least one league game, as well as an average of 1.3 shots per game, three dribbles per game and 1.1 key passes per game, putting him in the top five for each of those statistics in the squad.
Since leaving Selhurst Park, the midfielder had another London loan spell with Fulham during the 2020/21 season before making 27 appearances across all competitions back with Chelsea in this current campaign.
Shortly before he joined Palace on loan, Transfermarkt rated Loftus-Cheek’s market value at £4.5m in June 2017, whereas it now stands at £18m, showing a massive increase of 300% based on what he’s done in his career since then.
Labelled as a “special” player by Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel, there will undoubtedly be some regrets from the hierarchy at Selhurst Park that they were not able to secure the midfield talent on a permanent deal after his decent loan spell with them, despite their reported interest in doing so.
Moving forward, having started just 11 of the 27 games he’s played in for the west London club this season, Palace should definitely explore the possibility of signing him again if Chelsea have the ability to sell him from a business point of view. In doing so, they may just find the next Yaya.
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