Steve Parish: 'Manchester United held Wilfried Zaha back'

By Steven Toplis, Reporter | 15 April 2015

Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish believes that Wilfried Zaha's spell at Manchester United was harmful to his progress as a player.

Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish has claimed that Wilfried Zaha's spell at Manchester United set the player back in his football career.

The Eagles re-signed the 22-year-old for an undisclosed fee in January, having been acquired by Sir Alex Ferguson for United in 2013 for £15m then loaned back until the end of the 2012-13 campaign.

Zaha found first-team opportunities limited at Old Trafford and was loaned to Palace at the beginning of this season prior to completing a permanent return to Selhurst Park.

"It did not work for him up there and we came to a good arrangement with Manchester United," Parish told the Epsom Guardian.

"He's a great lad, and I would not say it has damaged him, but that experience of him going there and it not working out set him back a little bit. I don't know what happened up there, but it is certainly not all one-sided. There was a change of management just as he went there, Sir Alex bought him and he was not there when he arrived.

"There's been a bit of a maelstrom there over the past couple of years with the transition of the squad they had and Wilf got caught up in that a bit. There was no malice [from United] and they think he is a good player."

Zaha also spent the second half of last season on loan at Cardiff City.