Crystal Palace Recruitment 2026/2027: Finding A New Centre-Back For The Eagles - Data Analysis

Crystal Palace, at the time of writing, have the worst defensive record in the Premier League.

They've conceded 19 goals from 20.7 xGA in their first eight games of the 2026/2027 season. 

The South London club enjoyed a successful period with Oliver Glasner at the helm over the past couple of seasons, during which time they won their first-ever FA Cup and first-ever European trophy, the UEFA Conference League. 

This season feels like a bit of a crash back to reality for the Eagles, after flying higher than ever before. 

Glasner’s departure followed that of Marc Guéhi, who traded Selhurst Park for the Etihad Stadium when he joined Manchester City back in January, and preceded the sale of Maxence Lacroix to Chelsea this past summer. 

Losing those two defensive stalwarts, along with their most successful coach over the past year, makes it no surprise that Palace's defence looks a lot shakier than it did in recent seasons. 

The Eagles are in need of a backline reboot. 

This Crystal Palace data analysis and recruitment analysis piece focuses on identifying left centre-back transfer options, in particular, with their current left-footed central defensive options consisting of Chadi Riad and Honest Ahanor. 

The latter is only on loan at Selhurst Park from Atalanta for the 2026/2027 campaign before the promising 18-year-old is set to join Lacroix with Palace’s Premier League rivals Chelsea next summer. 

The current Crystal Palace team is built around a 3-4-3 formation; therefore, they require plenty of coverage across the backline, and quality coverage at that. 

This analysis looks at three potentially interesting profiles that should be on the Eagles’ radar heading into January and the 2027 summer transfer window as they look to bolster their defence and lose the tag of ‘worst defensive record in England’s top flight’. 

All players in this piece are evaluated through the lens of seven custom-built metrics derived from weighted combinations of Wyscout's raw event data, benchmarking each player against 312 left-footed centre-backs to have played at least 800 minutes in one of Europe’s top-five leagues, the Dutch Eredivisie, Portuguese Primeira Liga, Belgian Pro League, or EFL Championship over the past calendar year. 

Analysing The Current Crystal Palace Left Centre-Backs

Before highlighting our three Crystal Palace recruitment options, we start by analysing the current options, Chadi Riad and Honest Ahanor. 

Firstly, Riad (187cm/6’2”) performs well in our ‘Aerial Goal Threat’ and ‘Build-Up Security’ metrics, which speaks to his ability to threaten from set-piece situations in the opposing box and to offer reliable circulation and forward passing accuracy when building out from the back. 

However, he scores well below average in all other custom-built metrics among those in our dataset, indicating that there’s certainly room for Crystal Palace to secure an upgrade on the Morocco international. 

In particular, we’re focusing our search on identifying strong 1v1 defenders who offer very good progressive distribution. 

These are the two areas we deem non-negotiable in our search for a Crystal Palace left centre-back. 

Chadi Riad Percentile Ranks

As for Honest Ahanor (184cm/6’0”), the majority of whose data comes from the 2025/2026 Serie A campaign with Atalanta, in which he played 22 games for La Dea despite only turning 18 in February, the Italy U21 international offers very good defensive 1v1 ability, on top of a strong aerial game in both boxes. 

In possession, he ranks slightly above average in our dataset for Build-Up Security and just below average for Ball-Carrying Progression, while his Progressive Distribution numbers leave a lot to be desired. 

At 18, it’s exciting to see Ahanor getting consistent minutes at an extremely high level and performing well above average in some key centre-back metrics. 

With this in mind, it’s no wonder an English giant in Chelsea have opted to snap him up early for a reported €47m fee, and there’s surely big things to come from the Italian, though that won’t be at Selhurst Park for too much longer. 

Honest Ahanor Percentile Ranks

Calvin Bassey: The Premier League Proven Option

Calvin Bassey (185cm/6’1”) is currently under contract with Crystal Palace’s Premier League rivals Fulham, another London-based side who may find themselves fighting for survival against Palace this season based on both teams’ less-than-stellar starts. 

However, Bassey’s current contract is set to expire next summer, so the €28m-rated defender could become a free agent or become available on a cut-price deal in January, as was the case for Marc Guéhi when he left Palace this past January. 

I like Bassey as an option for Palace, firstly because he is familiar with the Premier League, having played in most of Fulham’s league games over the past three seasons, so there are fewer unknowns in this potential move. 

I also like the 26-year-old’s stylistic fit at left centre-back in the Crystal Palace setup, with Bassey experienced as both a left centre-back and a left-back. 

He’s a defender comfortable in wide areas, where wide centre-backs often have to cover behind the wing-back. 

Calvin Bassey Heat Map 2026/2027

As Figure 4 below indicates, he also performs very well in defensive 1v1s, boasting a 92nd percentile rank in that particular metric. 

Bassey’s defensive performance in the ‘Defensive Reading & Interventions’ metric is not quite as impressive, nor is his aerial ability. 

However, in possession, Bassey offers top-class ball-carrying out of defence, along with a strong track record in both progressive distribution and build-up security. 

Calvin Bassey Percentile Ranks

All this makes Bassey a top option for Palace if the Eagles could convince the Nigeria international to make the switch across London as he nears the end of his current deal.  

Callum Doyle: The Younger Option

Next up, we wanted to highlight a younger option, in case Crystal Palace weigh sell-on value particularly highly in their recruitment process. 

The best option for the Eagles aged 23 and under, in our view, is Callum Doyle (190cm/6’3”) of EFL Championship side Wrexham. 

One major downside with Doyle is that he’s yet to play a single minute in England’s top flight. 

A Manchester City academy product, Doyle left the Etihad on a permanent deal in the summer of 2025 after successive loan spells with lower-league sides, joining Wrexham in a €5.8m deal. 

The 190cm centre-half had become a key man in the Red Dragons defence before the end of 2025 and ended up featuring in 34 of their EFL Championship games last season as they narrowly missed out on the playoffs. 

Doyle has remained a fixture of the Wrexham defence this term, missing just one of their 12 league games so far this season. 

For Crystal Palace, Doyle's familiarity with playing in a back three at Wrexham, in the left centre-back role, will be attractive, as Palace will look to strengthen their back three over the next two transfer windows. 

Callum Doyle Heat Map 2026/2027

Though the 2026/2027 campaign hasn’t exactly gone to plan for the Red Dragons so far, Doyle has impressed EFL Championship viewers with his displays at left centre-back, the continuation of which could well put him on the radar of Premier League sides in upcoming transfer windows. 

Looking at Figure 6, Doyle is incredibly well-rounded when viewing his profile through the lens of our seven custom metrics. 

The €12m-rated defender only falls below the average in our Build-Up Security metric, but ranks well above average in the rest of our metrics. 

At EFL Championship level, over the last calendar year, he’s performed well in Defensive 1v1s; he’s been an aerial threat going forward as well as a dominant defensive force in the air, and he's been very capable from a ball progression perspective. 

His best score comes in the Defensive Reading & Interventions metric, a combination of interceptions and blocks, where he achieves a 90th percentile rank. 

Callum Doyle Percentile Ranks

Of course, this doesn’t suggest Callum Doyle will put up those numbers in the top flight, but it is starting to seem like he should get the chance to keep developing at the top level. 

Perhaps Crystal Palace should consider being the team to help him do that. 

Jeff Chabot: An Experienced But Imperfect Option

Our third and final Crystal Palace centre-back option is an experienced option, Jeff Chabot (195cm/6’5”) of VfB Stuttgart, with whom the 28-year-old is playing UEFA Champions League football this term after a strong 2025/2026 campaign when Chabot helped Die Roten finish fourth. 

Still, Stuttgart have endured a testing start to the 2026/2027 campaign, and they currently sit 15th in the German top flight. 

As with Callum Doyle at Wrexham, Chabot isn't one of the main players to blame for that poor start. 

Like Doyle, Chabot is incredibly well-rounded when viewed through the lens of our seven custom metrics.

The 28-year-old impressively posts a percentile rank over 90 in four of our seven metrics relative to the field based on his performance over the past calendar year. 

Aerially and defensively, he is an outstanding option. 

He also offers a strong combination of secure build-up play and progressive passing. 

Chabot’s numbers drop off only in ball-carrying, which isn’t a massive concern.  

Jeff Chabot Percentile Ranks

The downside with Chabot is the €15m-rated defender’s realistic fit for the left centre-back position at Selhurst Park. 

He is left-footed, as per our brief, but when Stuttgart use a back three, the 28-year-old is typically deployed in the centre. 

Jeff Chabot Heat Map 2026/2027

So while he stands out as the strongest statistical candidate in our dataset, his defensive output may reflect the responsibilities of a role Crystal Palace may not need to fill most urgently. 

This doesn’t necessarily make Chabot a bad option on its own, nor does it diminish the strength of his underlying numbers, but it does mean that his statistical profile should be viewed as a strong starting point for further investigation, with video analysis needed to establish whether his qualities translate to the specific demands of Palace's left centre-back role.