EAGLES EYED
Andersen is hoping wanted pair do not take flight
JOACHIM ANDERSEN is praying Crystal Palace’s young Eagles aren’t about to fly the nest.
Danish international and skipper Andersen is loving every bit of what’s happening right now and doesn’t want to see a multi-million pound summer sell-off.
Palace are in relentless form right now with five wins in their last six games – all against teams above them in the table.
But Palace’s grandstand finish under new boss Oliver Glasner is in danger of being overshadowed by the looming threat of a mass postseason sale.
Manchester United and Chelsea head a list of clubs who would take Michael Olise and Eberechi Eze in an instant.
Both could be available for around the £60m mark, which would represent unbelievable value in the current market.
And England international defender Marc Guehi, midfielder Adam Wharton and Andersen aren’t short of admirers willing to fork out big money to nab them.
Andersen said: “Obviously there will be interest this summer but we want to keep our best players.
“Hopefully they will see that the future is bright here and this is a place where they can improve and take their game on to the next level.
“We will just have to see what the summer brings and take it from there, but there is a real excitement about what we are doing.”
Transfer fever is expected to centre around Olise and Eze, who are really putting the frighteners on teams.
Olise opened the scoring in the 26th minute with a beautiful curling shot to make it double figures for the season.
Andersen added: “He’s a crazy player and we’re lucky to have him. Imagine if he had played all 37 games. He would have scored 20-25 goals.”
Three minutes later Jean-Philippe Mateta blasted home a second from close range after seizing on a Nathaniel Clyne shot which had rebounded out off the post.
Wolves looked in danger of being swamped.
Boss Gary O’Neil shuffled things around and in the 67th minute must have been close to fainting when Wolves got the benefit of a VAR decision.
Matheus Cunha’s goal was given the thumbs up with Hee-chan Hwang judged not to be offside and Wolves sniffed a chance of getting something from a game which had looked well beyond them.
That was soon extinguished when Eze raced onto a sublime defencesplitting pass from Olise, rounded the keeper and slipped the ball home.
But it wasn’t all milk and honey for Glasner’s boys. They had to reshuffle after Will Hughes limped off after 14 minutes and they were forced to see out the game with 10 men after Naouirou Ahamada was sent off for a second yellow card. WOLVES (3-5-2): Bentley 5; Lemina 5, Kilman 5, Toti 5 (Gonzalez 90); Doherty 5 (Doyle 80), Gomes 5, Traore 4 (Bellegarde 46, 5), Ait-Nouri 5 (Sarabia 61, 5), Semedo 5; Cunha 6, Hwang 5.
CRYSTAL PALACE (3-4-3): Henderson 7; Clyne 7, Andersen 7, Richards 7; Munoz 7, Hughes (Ahamada 14, 6), Wharton 7, Mitchell 7 (Guehi 69, 5); Olise 9 (Schlupp 88), Mateta 8 (Edouard 69, 5), Eze 8 (Ward 88).