Even before the starting XI had been announced for Crystal Palace’s game against Newcastle on Saturday, it wasn’t a massive secret that Victor Camarasa wasn’t a favourite under Roy Hodgson, to say the least.
The Spaniard, signed on a season-long loan deal from Real Betis back in the summer, arrived having just won Cardiff’s Players’ Player of the Season award following a campaign in which he scored five goals and grabbed four assists with the Bluebirds.
However, after 18 Premier League games this term, the 25-year-old has played just five minutes of league football for the Eagles.
A whole 1,620 minutes of possible action, and Camarasa has been granted just a shred of them – it truly is a baffling situation.
Having said that, nothing epitomises this strange case more than Hodgson’s choice of substitutes for the trip to St James’ Park on Saturday.
Amid an mini injury crisis, which has robbed the 72-year-old of Scott Dann, Gary Cahill, Andros Townsend, Joel Ward and Jeffrey Schlupp – Mamadou Sakho has also been serving a three-match ban – you would at the very least expect Camarasa to feature on the bench to make up the numbers, right?
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Well, even with the squad pushed to its very limits, Hodgson still wants nothing to do with the midfielder.
How so? Well, Camarasa’s expulsion from the first team was reinforced ever more by the fact that the former England manager decided to place three U23 players on the bench ahead of the on-loan Spaniard.
19-year-old James Daly, 18-year-old Brandon Pierrick and 21-year-old Sam Woods all featured amongst the substitutes alongside Max Meyer, Connor Wickham, Wayne Hennessey and Jairo Riedewald, with Camarasa nowhere to be seen.
If the fact that he’s only managed five minutes after 18 Premier League games this season didn’t already speak volumes, then Hodgson’s total exclusion of Camarasa can truly be epitomised by his choice of substitutes against Newcastle.
In other news, Crystal Palace should forget this £17m target and set their sights elsewhere…
