Crystal Palace know they must tread carefully to help Wilfried Zaha deliver what they most desire

There are high hopes the 24-year-old's return from injury can arrest Palace's slide but manager Roy Hodgson wants to find a balance so all the pressure is not heaped on his star man

Wilfried Zaha has been out of action since the first day of the season (Getty Images)

It was a comment that summed up the kind of bind that Crystal Palace are in, that summed up how tough it is for Roy Hodgson right now. There have, after all, been three things that the club’s fans have been desperately waiting for this season but they are all dependent on each other. Palace most of all just want a first win of the season, but that first requires them to score a long-desired first goal of the season... and it seems that requires the return of Wilf Zaha.

The 24-year-old will finally be back in the team for Saturday’s home match against Chelsea after a knee injury suffered in the opening-day defeat to Huddersfield, and it is understandable that many around the club hope that will see a bit of life back in their attack. One of Zaha’s finest games last season was away to the champions, when he ripped them apart in a 2-1 win, scoring one goal and setting up another for Christian Benteke.

To see the best of the winger again, though, Hodgson warned that it is actually imperative that Zaha doesn’t see himself as the club’s best hope. The 70-year-old believes that it would be counter-productive to put such pressure on him.

So, just when there’s finally a positive for the club, it is actually in their interests that it is played down.

“There is a big psychological factor with him coming back and being able to play again," Hodgson argued. "I think it would be wrong to put too much pressure on him at the moment. If we’re not careful, he’ll be trying too hard. He will be trying to do it all by himself. Once players start to do that their own games start to suffer. He’s got to be an important cog in a well-oiled machine and our job is to make certain that the machine is well enough oiled to produce that X factor.”

Hodgson didn’t exactly talk the return of his star down, though.

“He has got the X factor,” the Palace manager said of Zaha. “He can dribble and beat people, which not every player in the league is capable of doing. Most of all he has a special place in the hearts and minds of the Crystal Palace supporters. I think they will feel more comfortable now that he is back believing he is the type of person who, with his ability, can change a game and turn a defeat into a draw or a draw into a victory.

“I have seen him do that. I have seen him do that in the game I visited here and in televised matches. I know that he has the ability and capability but we have to be careful here. We have got a lot of things to do at Crystal Palace before I am going to be satisfied to say that we are a good team, a team that knows exactly what it is doing on the field, a team that is going to be difficult to beat and a team capable of winning games and getting the points we need. At the moment, to put all that on Wilf’s plate, I think that would be totally wrong.”

The absence of Benteke could mean there is even more pressure on Zaha, since he may well have to play up front against Chelsea. He will be central to the club’s hopes in so many senses, making that expectation unavoidable. Others around the club might say it is precisely the sort of pressure that should come with signing a new contract on wages reported to be up to £110,000 a week, especially as he is notionally coming in to prime age to produce. The flip side is that it was performances like his last match against the champions that justified such a deal, and that led Hodgson to lament Zaha wasn’t able to play in that kind of form when he was England manager.

Hodgson did call up Zaha when he first impressed at Palace in 2012 and gave him his first international cap as a sub against Sweden in November of that year. The winger also got a move to Manchester United on the back of that form, but his subsequent struggles to get into the team saw his career stall, and he ultimately opted to declare for Ivory Coast in November 2016 when it seemed England opportunities would be limited. Zaha soon after went into overdrive.

“He was certainly in the squad that went to play Sweden [in 2012],” Hodgson said. “He was in good form for Crystal Palace at the time but of course after that he moved to Manchester United almost immediately and then he didn't play for two years, or a year and a half. I never had the chance to pick him [for England] when he was in his heyday here, which was about partly last year and partly the year before.”

Palace and Hodgson now need that to continue - but to not make too much of a big deal about it. That careful balance could yield the biggest responses.