Crystal Palace forwards Wilfried Zaha and Andros Townsend have taken to Twitter to decry reports of a 'spectacular players' meeting' held at the club's training ground last Friday.
Zaha has had a tumultuous summer, being the subject of a number of failed bids from both Arsenal and Everton. He even attempted to push through a move to the Merseyside club with a transfer request in the final days of the transfer window, which was ultimately futile.
The whole back page for something that categorically didn’t happen #FakeNews 樂 https://t.co/VkO7DVfkqm
— Andros Townsend (@andros_townsend) August 13, 2019
Now, according to a report which emanated from The Sun
It was claimed that centre back Mamadou Sakho was the orchestrator of the meeting, which Roy Hodgson was unaware of but every first-team player was present (which seems a push, doesn't it?), and that in it he demanded Zaha give the club his all until the January transfer window.
And, ultimately, the Ivorian agreed to 'put his differences with Palace’s hierachy [sic] to one side' for the benefit of the team.
Which is all well and good, until both Andros Townsend and Zaha himself publicly come out and refute it as nonsense, which is what both did.
Making up lies is clearly more interesting than the actual truth 路♂️ https://t.co/aCqYjvuMgB
— Wilfried Zaha (@wilfriedzaha) August 13, 2019
Retweeting the Sun's post of the story, which was splashed across Tuesday's back page, Townsend tweeted: "The whole back page for something that categorically didn't happen #FakeNews."
Zaha then retweeted his teammate's post with three laughing emojis, before reaffirming: "Making up lies is clearly more interesting than the actual truth."
After being benched for the start of the game on Saturday, the winger came on to rapturous applause from the Eagles faithful, and he'll surely be looking to put this summer behind him with a win against Sheffield United this Sunday.
Source : 90min