Evann Guessand Completes Loan Back to Crystal Palace
Aston Villa yesterday confirmed that Evann Guessand has joined Crystal Palace on a season-long loan with a conditional obligation to buy, drawing a line under a spell that never came close to matching the fee Villa paid for him.
Guessand’s time at Villa did land a quite remarkable achievement. Last season he became the only player in history to win two different European trophies in the same campaign, sharing in Villa’s Europa League triumph and Crystal Palace’s Conference League win.
Villa’s Poor Deal
Villa had paid £26m plus £4.3m in add-ons for a forward who looked powerful, versatile and promising on paper, but none of it translated into a genuine foothold in Emery’s side. He was quickly filed alongside several other signings that have done little to help evolve Villa’s squad in recent transfer windows, which has led to a more drastic single window reshuffle.
It not working out at Villa was already clear by January 2026, when Guessand went out on his first loan spell at Selhurst Park. Palace had an option to buy him outright as part of that loan, but let it expire rather than trigger it, a decision that lined up with Oliver Glasner leaving as manager and Palace choosing to see what their new head coach made of him before committing.
Guessand said the right things over pre-season, insisting he wanted to fight for his place back at Villa. It became obvious quickly enough that neither the club nor the supporters gave him much hope of winning that fight.
Palace Love and Europa Hope
For the player, there is at least a soft landing. He returns to a club that has shown far more enthusiasm for him than Villa ever really did. The two club’s respective fan reaction to the player makes this very much a chase of one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
Crystal Palace are back in the Europa League this season, and they will be hoping Guessand can continue what is, to be fair to him, a decent record in the competition: four goals in 13 starts across spells with Nantes, Nice and Villa.
At Villa specifically, he was never more than a Europa League rotation option, six starts and one substitute appearance yielding a couple of goals. In the Premier League he managed just six starts and seven appearances off the bench.
For Villa, Guessand will stand as a cautionary tale: a transfer fee they could ill afford to get wrong, at a time when every pound is being scrutinised under PSR and now the new Premier League Squad Cost Ratio system.
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