Crystal Palace Pursue Evann Guessand Reunion on Loan

Crystal Palace are pushing to bring Evann Guessand back to Selhurst Park, opening talks with Aston Villa over a season-long loan for the Ivory Coast forward.

Guessand, 25, knows the walk from the tunnel to the Holmesdale Road end well enough. He spent the second half of last season in south London, playing his part in a campaign that ended with a European trophy and a sense that his story at Palace was only just getting started.

His path to this point has been anything but smooth. Villa paid £26m to sign him last August, a statement fee for a player expected to add power and penetration to Unai Emery’s attack. The return was modest: two goals in 21 appearances in all competitions, a stuttering first chapter in the Premier League that never quite caught fire.

The move to Palace in January changed the temperature. Given a clearer role and a fresh backdrop, Guessand finally found his moment, scoring his first Premier League goal in a 1-0 win over Wolves. It was the sort of tight, tense game that often defines a season; his finish decided it.

His year became even more surreal as the cups rolled on. Guessand had featured for Villa earlier in their Europa League campaign, enough to earn a winner’s medal when Emery’s side went on to lift the trophy. By May, he was also part of the Palace squad that claimed the Conference League, coming off the bench in the final against Rayo Vallecano. One season, two European winner’s medals, and a career suddenly decorated in silver.

The international stage followed. Guessand made two substitute appearances for Ivory Coast at this summer’s World Cup, edging his way into a national side rich with attacking options. It wasn’t a starring role, but it was another step, another level reached.

Palace had the option to make his stay permanent earlier in the summer and chose not to trigger it, a decision shaped by timing, finances and squad planning. Guessand returned to Villa for pre-season, back under Emery’s gaze and fighting for minutes in a crowded forward line.

Now the picture is shifting again. With talks under way over a season-long loan, Palace are moving to recreate a partnership that showed promise but never had the chance to run over a full campaign. Villa, armed with depth and fresh European ambitions of their own, could sanction a deal that gives Guessand the regular Premier League football he struggled to find in Birmingham.

He arrives, if the deal is completed, as a player with a curious profile: a forward whose domestic numbers remain modest, yet whose medal collection already looks like that of a seasoned European campaigner.

Palace know what they’re getting. Guessand knows exactly what he’s walking back into. The question now is whether a second spell in SE25 finally turns flashes of potential into something more permanent.