Is there a more beguiling player in England than Yaya Sanogo? With his gangly frame and occasionally ropey first touch he has resembled a competition winner at times, a mess of limbs in a football kit, a blinking lost child who has been chucked on to the pitch before his time, and he has often been used as a stick to beat Arsène Wenger with ever since he joined Arsenal in July 2013.
And yet he has his fans, Wenger the most notable of them. Arsenal’s manager is a believer and he knows a thing or two about football. His faith in Sanogo has certainly been tested. But there have been little glimpses here and there that if the rough edges can be ironed out of Sanogo’s game, there is a high-grade footballer waiting to emerge. Not yet and probably not for at least a couple of years. But the raw materials – pace, strength and more intelligence than he is given credit for – are there.
Alan Pardew also likes Sanogo. He said he had the “chaos factor” when he joined Crystal Palace on loan, a bit like Heath Ledger’s Joker, and Sanogo certainly makes things happen when is on the pitch. He is a handful, as Southampton discovered to their cost while crashing out of the FA Cup at the hands of a resurgent Palace.
Along with the magnificent Marouane Chamakh, Sanogo ran riot against the stingiest defence in the Premier League, scoring his first goal for Palace in stylish fashion and threatening on several other occasions. He looked good and he can improve. He will not be under the spotlight at Palace and he will get a chance to learn the trade.
“He’s only a young player, he’s only 21,” Pardew said. “It’s difficult to play for Arsenal when you’re 21. Particularly as a striker. You’ve got to learn all those traits. How to hold it in, buy free-kicks. He’s got a great mentor here in Glenn Murray. Glenn is the master of that No9 role in terms of those little tricks that you need.
“He’s going to learn and I think that’s where Arsène Wenger thought it was a good opportunity for him to come on loan and learn how to play that role. He won’t be as good as he was today in every game but so far he’s done terrific.”
Sanogo was not the only Palace player who caught the eye. The game’s outstanding player was Chamakh, who excelled in his role as a No10, scoring twice in the first half to secure a 3-2 victory for Palace that sent them into the fifth round of the FA Cup.
A hamstring injury had kept Chamakh on the sidelines since 13 December, but there was no rustiness on his return, and Pardew now has a welcome selection headache given that another of his strikers, Dwight Gayle, scored twice in the 3-2 win at Burnley the previous weekend.
“What you try to do is create maximum opportunity for them,” Pardew said. “Sometimes you need a bit of luck. Chamakh getting two goals against Southampton was good individual play. Blimey, I’m going to have some sleepless nights which players should play. That’s a real lovely problem for us.”
Pardew has won all four of his matches since replacing Neil Warnock as manager last month and there was more evidence of his new side’s battling qualities against Southampton. Palace trailed twice against the side who are third in the Premier League, but the Chamakh-Sanogo double act gave them a half-time lead that they refused to relinquish.
The focus remains on survival, although Pardew believes that a cup run could help Palace’s league form. “Now it is just about momentum, keeping momentum and we could lose it at home to Everton,” he said. “We could lose it at Leicester and maybe the Cup might be a place where we bring it back because there is the excitement about that game to come.
“To me it’s like a building block of momentum and if we’ve done OK in to that game it will just build it again and that is the trick to the Premier League or any league, having that belief that you can win any game and at the moment we feel we can, so that’s good.”
Man of the match Marouane Chamakh (Crystal Palace)