Crystal Palace winger Wilfried Zaha has been nominated for the Premier League Player of the Month award for February.
The Ivorian returned to SE25 from the Africa Cup of Nations at the start of the month and immediately hit the ground running with his club.
Zaha was named in Palace’s starting XI to take on Norwich in a big game at Carrow Road and curled a sensational strike into the top corner of Angus Gunn’s goal.
He then played an important role as the Eagles secured a point away at Brentford before leading the line in an eventual 1-0 defeat to title-chasers Chelsea at Selhurst Park.
The winger’s best performance of the month came at Vicarage Road against Watford where Palace fired four goals past the Hornets with Zaha netting two of them.
His first was a powerful finish from inside the box that Ben Foster couldn’t get down to stop quickly enough while his second was a carbon copy of his previous goal at Norwich.
Zaha shimmied past two defenders and curled his right-footed shot into the corner of Foster’s net to make it 4-1.
Former Palace manager Roy Hodgson - now in charge at Watford - said he wasn’t surprised that Zaha had had such an impact on the game, though he’d have preferred if he wasn’t in quite as clinical a mood.
"I’m indebted to Wilfried for four very good years at Crystal Palace,” said Hodgson. “It would have been nice tonight if he chose to blast those two balls over the crossbar but he didn’t."
Zaha finished February playing 90 minutes in a 1-1 draw against Burnley at Selhurst Park, leaving him with three league goals for the month to leave him joint top of Palace’s charts alongside Conor Gallagher.
His three efforts in the month are also the joint-most of any player in the division for February.
Zaha is up against Ben Mee (Burnley), Joel Matip (Liverpool), Harry Kane (Tottenham Hotspur), Ryan Fraser (Newcastle) and Che Adams (Southampton).
