5 Ways Yohan Cabaye Shows Crystal Palace Have Changed Forever

2. Banishing The Ghost Of Lombardo

Palace's last major signing that comes close to Cabaye in terms of prestige was Attilio Lombardo who was signed eighteen years ago as a vanity signing by our then chairman Mark Goldberg. He was the speedboat outside the council house. This wasn't just a big fish in a small pond scenario; this was dropping a whopping great blue whale in my bathtub. Neither good for the structural integrity of the bath nor very comfortable for the whale. He was an International of real pedigree but the thing is, if looked at objectively, this wasn't Palace getting Roberto Baggio or Paolo Maldini; it was Palace signing a very good player, but not a one anyone would really consider in the top ten Italians of the 1990's. Probably not even in the top twenty. For Palace fans like myself though, he was a God. With his bald head and superlative skills he literally did seem like a being from another world. A world where 90 year old men could dictate the pace of Premier League matches. Steady, but steep, improvement on and off the park in the last five years means that we should, if not expect to sign players like Cabaye, accept when we are linked with them. When the Cabaye signing was announced, our flamboyantly coiffured co-chairman Steve Parish said there would possibly be three more signings and I believed him. Lombardo was a signing that showed how small a club we were; Cabaye is a signing that shows we are a club on the up.