Why Manchester United Made a Major Mistake Selling Wilfried Zaha

"I'd never look at someone and think he's better than me, unless it's Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi."

This was the bold declaration from Wilfried Zaha when he gave his first major interview to the Guardian in the autumn of 2012. The Crystal Palace winger had just turned 20 and had only ever played in the Championship, and so his words were immediately mocked for their perceived arrogance.

In the three-and-a-half years since then Zaha has persuaded Sir Alex Ferguson to invest £12 million in him, been the inspiration behind Palace winning promotion to the Premier League and, after a troubled season at Manchester United, has returned to Palace and helped keep them in the top flight for the last two seasons.

Zaha has of course not come anywhere close to the level of Ronaldo and Messi, but in one important area, it might be a surprise to learn he has actually far outstripped the pair.

So far this season, according to Squawka, Zaha has successfully beaten an opposition player 118 times, compared to Messi's 105 and Ronaldo's 46.

In fact, in the leading five European leagues, only Neymar has narrowly beaten more opponents than Zaha with 120 successful take-ons. 

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Zaha’s achievements are even greater when you consider Neymar, Messi and Ronaldo are surrounded by the best players in the world, whereas he plays with more modest team-mates who have lately been struggling in the depths of the Premier League.

And yet Zaha’s brilliance has remained a hidden triumph this season, for he remains outside the England squad, didn’t appear on the shortlist for the PFA’s Young Player of the Year award and simply hasn’t attracted the praise his form deserves.

It should be celebrated that a young English player has been more successful than Messi and Ronaldo at that most exhilarating skill of beating an opponent with the ball and is currently locked in a private battle with Neymar to be the best in Europe this season.

In the Premier League he leads the table for the most successful take-ons with 116 ahead of the more celebrated Riyad Mahrez (105), Ross Barkley (102), Mousa Dembele (77) and Anthony Martial (74). Zaha is also comfortably the most fouled player in the Premier League, as opposition defenders can’t deal with him this season.

On Wednesday night Zaha returns to Old Trafford for the first time since he was permanently sold back to Palace last summer. He should hold his head high when he takes to the pitch, for he didn’t fail there; he was strangely never even given a chance.

Wilfried Zaha was Sir Alex Ferguson’s final purchase for Manchester United in January 2013, a parting gift to his successors.

Ferguson saw in Zaha the same youthful promise and qualities he had seen in Cristiano Ronaldo when he bought him 10 years earlier: natural balance, blurring pace, two feet, the ability to glide past defenders and an inherent self-belief.

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And yet he was mistreated and ignored by David Moyes, who failed to start him in a single Premier League game and allowed him on the pitch for just 167 minutes, and Louis van Gaal, who sold him back to Crystal Palace without playing him at all.

It is impossible to deem Zaha a failure at Old Trafford when he did not even start a game in the Premier League. Even the vastly inferior pair of Gabriel Obertan and the ridiculed Bebe were given more starts for United than Zaha.

Since returning to Selhurst Park, Zaha has developed as an attacking player and proved he can thrive in the Premier League. He helped Palace reach fifth in the table just before Christmas and has remained a threat throughout the club’s recent slump.

“Wilf is a complex character, and not someone who was ready for United in terms of his personality then," Alan Pardew told me at the start of the season. “He was a young man going as a big signing, and probably didn’t have enough playing time.

“But he is getting that playing time under me, and he will get better. … He takes things personally, and if something goes wrong he blames himself. He is 22, and his best years are ahead of him, and can get [back] into the England team.”

Zaha is far from the finished article, and for all his ability at beating defenders, he needs to create more chances and add a greater number of assists and goals to his game.

If United had shown him more patience and simply given him a few more games, they would have reaped the benefit themselves.

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Van Gaal has repeatedly said his United side needs more speed and creativity, and yet he allowed Zaha to leave Old Trafford.

Zaha would have contributed more to United this season than their current stable of underperforming wide players, including Memphis Depay, Jesse Lingard, Ashley Young and Adnan Januzaj. United simply don’t have a winger as good as Zaha, a player who can skip past defenders with his confidence and ease.

Witness his run against Arsenal in the dying minutes of Palace’s 1-1 draw at the Emirates on Sunday afternoon, when he took the ball the entire length of the field and beat three players before almost setting up an unlikely winning goal.

But Zaha was probably too much of a free spirit, too attacking and too direct to appeal to Van Gaal, who has stifled those qualities at United this season. 

On Wednesday night at Old Trafford, Zaha will be keen to show Van Gaal and United what has become increasingly obvious: They made a mistake selling him so soon.