Crystal Palace in Talks to Re-sign Evann Guessand on Loan

Crystal Palace are in talks to bring Evann Guessand back to Selhurst Park, with a season-long loan from Aston Villa on the table for the Ivory Coast forward.

The 25-year-old knows the walk down the Selhurst tunnel well enough. He arrived in January and played his part in a spring surge that ended with a European trophy in his luggage and a sense that his story in south London wasn’t quite finished.

His route here has been anything but smooth. Villa paid £26m to sign him only last August, a statement fee for a player expected to add punch to Unai Emery’s attack. The impact never truly landed. Two goals in 21 appearances in all competitions told its own tale, a stop-start first half of the season that never matched the price tag or the promise.

The reset came in January. Palace took him on loan, handed him minutes, and eventually a moment. Guessand’s first Premier League goal arrived in a tight, nervy 1-0 win over Wolves, a finish that briefly cut through the noise around his form and his fee. It was the kind of goal that sticks with a fanbase: narrow margin, big release.

His season turned into a tour of Europe’s secondary stages. Before that winter move, he had already featured for Villa in their Europa League campaign, enough to earn a winner’s medal when Emery’s side went on to lift the trophy. Months later, he was back under the lights again, this time in Palace colours, coming off the bench in the Conference League final victory over Rayo Vallecano as Selhurst Park’s European adventure hit its peak.

By May, Guessand had collected two European winners’ medals from two different clubs in the same season and finally looked like a forward moving with momentum rather than weight on his shoulders.

The summer brought another stage. He made two substitute appearances for Ivory Coast at the World Cup, a reminder of his standing back home and of the ceiling that convinced Villa to invest so heavily in the first place.

When the tournament ended, he reported back to Bodymoor Heath for pre-season, Palace having decided against triggering their option to buy earlier in the window. That might yet prove a pause rather than a full stop. Talks are now under way over a fresh loan that would return him to a club where the fit felt more natural and the crowd more forgiving.

For Palace, it is a chance to reintroduce a forward who already understands the demands of the manager and the rhythm of the ground. For Guessand, it could be the season that decides whether he is remembered as a misfire at a Champions League-chasing club or as a late-blooming Premier League force who simply needed the right home.