Edouard Is Not Doing Well At Palace Because He Left Celtic Way Too Early.

There was a point when Odsonne Edouard was scoring goals for Celtic that I thought we might be watching the best player to wear a striker’s jersey at our club since Larsson.

In some ways he was, although I think he colossally underachieved in that last campaign, where he looked lethargic, even lazy, almost all of the time.

The quality that saw him get a move was clear. He could run games when he was in the mood. His sharp mind was often miles ahead of the opposition.

But it is those negative qualities which are the ones which are routinely on display now that he’s in England. It’s as if for Edouard the goal was simply to get there, to play at that level. He certainly does not yet look as if he belongs there.

There is something here that too many players who have left our club too soon don’t seem to fully understand. Let’s look at the extreme example, which is that of Islam Feruz. Edouard has reached a far higher level than Feruz did, but the warnings that Eddie got when he was considering leaving are the same ones Feruz got and ignored.

If you chase the money this early in your career you better be worth it. Because otherwise your first big deal will be your last one, and there’s a long time after that to make the money last especially if you tailored your lifestyle around it.

French Eddie wasn’t remotely ready to spearhead an EPL forward line, and that must have been obvious to a lot of the people around him, people who kept their mouths shut and took the money.

I think he was probably badly advised, but he wouldn’t be the first player that has happened to. You can understand it with Giakoumakis and Juranovic – they were speeding towards their 30’s and they had one last chance to grab the brass ring.

Edouard was in his early 20’s when he left Celtic, and he had a contract offer on the table which he could have signed and been financially better off and planning his next move with the time to take his time and get it right. Crystal Palace? A mid-to-bottom table scrap for survival? And he was meant to carry that on his own shoulders?

You could see a mile away that in some ways he lacked the maturity for that. That his agents either didn’t see that or didn’t care about it is amazing to me.

Too many players are steered wrong like this, and too many of them are steered away from Celtic Park this way.

I don’t know whether Edouard will land a contract commensurate with what he’s on now when he leaves Palace; I do know that his time there has hurt his career prospects some, and that unless his next move is a success that he will come to regret it.