The final day of the January transfer window has typically been a busy time for the Eagles, especially in recent years with no fewer than six players who started Saturday’s win against Stoke signing for the club in the final few hours of the winter window.
Rewind a decade to 2006 though and things were much different when the Eagles had preferred to do their business during the entire month, rather than leaving things until the last minute. No players came or went on the final day in 2006, and a year later the Eagles’ only movement was to sell Jon Macken to Derby County on a free transfer.
The phonelines between Selhurst Park and Pride Park remained hot in the subsequent years, as after 2008’s sale of winger Dave Martin to Millwall for £50,000, the Eagles secured the signature of Claude Davis from the Rams on loan in 2009, before they also snapped up Dean Moxey two years later, who would go on to play a key role for the club over the next few years.
After a fairly quiet day in south London in 2012 with youngsters Kwesi Appiah and Michael Chambers signed from non-league Margate and Dulwich Hamlet respectively, things really began to heat up as the club pushed for promotion to the Premier League in 2012/13.
With Palace’s promotion charge beginning to stutter, manager Ian Holloway turned to some familiar faces and beat the clock by seconds to sign Swansea City’s Stephen Dobbie and Kevin Phillips from Blackpool on loan deals, both of whom would prove to be inspired signings and would be purchased permanently once top-flight football had been secured following Phillips’ penalty against Watford five months later.
Possibly the busiest day of transfer activity in the Eagles’ history came in 2014. Tony Pulis had taken his time to make his mark on the squad he’d inherited from Holloway, and a crazy day saw Joe Ledley, Wayne Hennessey and Scott Dann brought in, with Jason Puncheon making his loan move from Southampton permanent to free up space to allow Tom Ince to also make the switch from Blackpool to south London.
12 months after his arrival in SE25, Dobbie was again a deadline day mover when he moved in the opposite direction to the Seasiders, and Jose Campana’s short time at the club also ended when he was sent on a temporary move to German club Nurnberg as a hectic day at Beckenham came to a close.
Last year again saw some significant moves as Palace finally managed to get Wilfried Zaha to officially return from Manchester United when his loan move was made permanent, and Chung-yong Lee was signed from Bolton Wanderers with Barry Bannan replacing him on loan at the Macron Stadium. Youngster Keshi Anderson was also snapped up from Barton Rovers.