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Crystal Palace Fan View: Roy Hodgson has more work to do in the January transfer window

We’re just days away from the closure of the January transfer window, and time is fast running out for Crystal Palace to get one or two more deals over the line. After a spate of injuries throughout December Roy Hodgson joked that we could even need “as many as six or seven” in this window. Figures like that were never going to materialise, but are indicative of the struggles we’ve had with injuries and the existing depth of the squad and why the business we manage to get done in the next two or three days could play an important role in our run to the end of the season

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A loan signing for midfielder Erdal Rakip gives us options
A loan signing for midfielder Erdal Rakip gives us options
The story so far…

Two players have already held the red and blue strip aloft as they signed for Crystal Palace, and both have arrived in the last week.

First was Erdal Rakip, a young Swedish player I’m not sure anyone knows much about. In his own words, he’s a “box to box” midfielder, something we don’t necessarily have in the squad. James McArthur is about the best we’ve got in that department, but he’s been employed wide on numerous occasions recently and Jason Puncheon’s absence means we don’t have a lot of cover in Midfield for the time being. A loan deal until the end of the season can do neither party any harm.

The next man to join the ranks was Jarosław Jach. I was slightly blind-sided by this one, in all honesty. Roy Hodgson has commended Martin Kelly for his recent performance, James Tomkins has led the defence well by his side and Scott Dann and Mamadou Sakho are both more than capable centre-halves. In the short term there won’t be a problem, Scott Dann has been ruled out for the rest of the season remember, but in the summer we could see a shuffling of the pack back there – 4 first choice centre-halves plus the option of Kelly or Damien Delaney is overkill when other positions are lacking in depth.

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Polish international Jach is the second January signing for Crystal Palace
Polish international Jach is the second January signing for Crystal Palace
Where do Crystal Palace need to strengthen next?

I think we should hope to see one or two more players coming in before Wednesday’s 11pm deadline.

If there were two positions that I wanted strengthening at the start of January, they would have been a goalkeeper and a forward. Neither has happened so far, and I think one will come through before the deadline but the likelihood of quality additions in both areas given the amount a striker is likely to cost seems unlikely.

Of the two, I’d rather see a goalkeeper added. Connor Wickham must surely be back in contention at some point in the coming months, Christian Benteke cannot continue to miss the target with such alarming regularity and Bakary Sako has almost been like a new signing. Wayne Hennessey continues to fill everyone with as much hope as Richard Hammond promising to return your supercar the right way up, and Hodgson seems to be going backwards and forwards on Julian Speroni.