Scandalous that English football has spurned the gift of wonderful Wilf

He should be loved, cherished and revered, but instead Wilfried Zaha remains the gift English football cruelly and stupidly mistreated and rejected. It makes me sick.

He turns 26 next week and is in his prime. He is one of the planet’s elite footballers and yet he remains living proof that in the weird world of football, reputation rather than ability can be what defines you.

Quite why he attracts negativity rather than adoration is a mystery. The more I live the more I believe football fans aren’t actually that interested in the 90 minutes of action but are happy to make do with a Match Of The Day-sized portion of highlights and instead base their opinions on the gossip and comment, often ill-informed, that accompanies the game.

If your only engagement with football was to watch matches in their entirety - no 24-hour TV or radio news channels, no social media, no tabloids - you would view Zaha as a truly world-class dangerman, a thrilling bundle of energy and extraordinary skill.

I had the pleasure of sitting next to Sir Alex Ferguson at a lunch two and a half years ago and we discussed Zaha. He said the £3.5m Crystal Palace paid to buy him back from United was one of the bargains of all time and described him as being as brave as a lion. “He’ll be fine, don’t worry about that,” Ferguson told me.

Fergie knew. Zaha was the legend’s leaving present to United yet, rather than nurture and develop his talent David Moyes discarded him with foolish haste, albeit the player himself admitted he was a long way from the finished article at that point in his career.

His unsuccessful time at United was more the club’s fault than his yet he carries the blame and the stain for it, and even though he has flourished spectacularly since then the love for him outside Selhurst Park is woefully scarce.

He should be a regular starter for England. Had that been the case in Russia the Three Lions might even have made the final and won it, but instead he was watching the action in Los Angeles and Spain with his mates, having been scandalously forced to opt to represent Ivory Coast, the land of his birth, because he had been rejected by a string of England managers who had simply not done their research properly.

This season Zaha has continued to dazzle for Palace but still the rest of the sport largely continues to resist the urge to embrace him. It has been pleasing to see some pundits and journalists finally come to accept he is one of the most amazing talents in the Premier League, but he remains a disgracefully under-appreciated jewel.

That’s because he's a diver, the mugs will holler. Okay, let’s examine that. It’s actually a short argument. He simply isn’t.

Zaha wins penalties because of his incredibly fast feet, his phenomenal balance and his ability to bamboozle defenders and draw them into fouls.

The one he earned Palace against Arsenal Sunday sums up the entire debate. Zaha got one-on-one with Granit Xhaka, shimmied and attempted to pass the bewildered makeshift left-back on the outside and was brought down.

Martin Atkinson had no hesitation in pointing to the spot, and the protest from the Arsenal players was half-hearted at best.

But Twitter went berserk. Even normally rational people lost their heads and claimed Zaha was basically the devil. The abuse was appalling and it was therefore lovely to picture the mass deleting of tweets when Xhaka commendably admitted on TV later that day that he had caught the player and the penalty award was correct.

However, that will still not stop every twisted loser from having their say, and on Tuesday Zaha issued an Instagram statement saying: “For all the people taking it one step further and being racist and wishing death on my family I wish your families the best too x. ps. my life is still very good despite your hate.”

Hopefully this level-headed, fine man has learned that social media abuse is rooted in jealousy, bitterness and general unhappiness on the part of people whose lives have not worked out as they had hoped and who, for no good reason, vent their fury at those who have got off their arses and tried to make something of themselves.

A Twitter death threat is about as meaningful as a death threat from Felicity Kendal but it is still unpleasant for anyone to experience such spite, and the sooner a more responsible social media product that requires people to use their own names and adhere to a strict code of conduct emerges the better.

What is so frustrating about the criticism Zaha gets is that plenty of players get booked for blatant, genuine contact-free dives that are a clear attempt to cheat, Tottenham’s Lucas Moura being the latest example on Monday, and barely a word is mentioned about it.

The treatment of Zaha by opposition players and the lack of protection he gets is disgusting. From Watford thug Etienne Capoue stamping down on his Achilles in the opening minutes of the game in August to the systematic targeting of him by Everton’s players, who had no fair means of preventing him from causing havoc in their defensive third, to the seven fouls (a Premier League record this season) that Arsenal committed on him, this magnificent player keeps getting roughed up and knocked down.

Wilfried Zaha came in for some rough treatment against ArsenalCredit: Mike Hewitt

He continues to get up again though. Ferguson is right. He has a big heart and an indomitable spirit and one day even the most ignorant football follower will marvel at his greatness.

It’s not even as if he conducts himself badly off the field. Far from it. As well as donating ten per cent of his salary to charity, something his mother told him was the right thing to do when he first started earning money as a player, he is doting father to son Leo and someone who does more than his fair share of community duties.

There is a temptation to say bollocks to the rest of the world, everyone at Palace knows how wonderful he is and if anyone wants to deny themselves the joy of appreciating his talent that’s their loss.

But it rankles with me. All these years after he made his professional debut, replacing Stern John against Cardiff in 2010, he should have become a star of the world stage by now.

That he hasn’t is football’s fault rather than his, but there is still time for justice to be done.

There is a part of me that desperately wants Zaha to stay at Palace and keep carrying us to more years of Premier League existence, but that would almost certainly come at the cost of the man himself failing to achieving everything he deserves to.

So if he does leave, the sense of dismay will be tempered by a feeling of joy and excitement that if he goes to a top-six side or one of Europe’s biggest clubs he will almost certainly finally get the accolades and the love he so richly deserves.

He has been marvellously loyal to Palace, and the club and its fans have worshipped him in return. But while others may believe he should stay put for the rest of his career I would have to accept with a heavy heart that he has earned the chance to dance on the biggest stages. So he would go with my eternal gratitude for all the times he has got me out of my seat and brought joy and exhilaration to my life and my heartfelt desire that he goes on to prove himself a legend of the game.

Silence is golden when paying tribute

The tragic events of Saturday have as a silver lining the survival of Glenn Hoddle, who suffered a heart attack a few hours before the Leicester helicopter crash.

When England played Argentina in the infamous 1986 World Cup quarter-final Hoddle was in midfield and Ray Wilkins was an unused substitute. Wilkins tragically died of a heart attack aged 61 earlier this year but thankfully Hoddle, on his 61st birthday, survived his.

The reaction, meanwhile, to the awful disaster at the King Power Stadium showed once again how classy the football world can be when it needs to pull together.

And we had further evidence that the minute’s silence should never be replaced with applause. At Palace the stadium announcer mentioned something over the painfully quiet public address system and then we all realised we were supposed to be clapping. It was pretty disappointing.

Driving home, I listened on the radio as the supporters of Manchester United and Everton stood in unblemished silence. It was magnificent and reminded me that if you want to pay tribute to those who have lost their lives silence sends a message of sympathy far more powerfully than applause.

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