MARTIN KEOWN

WHEN Zaha chose to play for the Ivory Coast, I thought: ‘What a loss to england.’ Not everyone agreed. There were a few shrugging their shoulders because he is inconsistent. But england cannot afford to lose talents like Wilfried Zaha. he has the X-factor. he gets people out of their seats. he hurts rival teams. he has developed a lot and will get better. he was isolated at Manchester United and, from what I hear, didn’t take too kindly to criticism from David Moyes. his head went down, he couldn’t cope and went off to Cardiff on loan. Now we are seeing the Zaha who sir Alex Ferguson expected him to become when he signed him from Palace for £10million exactly five years ago. he could be worth five times that now. he is a menace with the ball and will hurt teams, but he does go down too quickly. I can imagine roy hodgson speaking to him about it because Palace cannot afford to lose him. With him in the team, they have a chance, but without him they won’t win a game. They have to keep him fit and he has to avoid retrospective suspensions for diving. A player will have a picture in his head; do I beat the defender for pace, do I trick my way past him, do I shoot or do I go down? he looks to go down too often. he walks the tightrope and so far he isn’t falling off, but his actions will surely lead to greater scrutiny from referees in the future. he needs to learn quickly. he needs to be very careful.