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Always grateful, man, that’s how I feel – that will be me for life,” reflected Eberechi Eze on his spell at Crystal Palace in an interview with fellow footballer Ian Wright. The Arsenal legend, another south Londoner who completed the transfer at the identical age – 27 – back in 1991, appeared the perfect person to share what Eze referred to as “the fulfillment of a prayer we started 20 years ago as a family.”

However for a minor group of Palace supporters with long memories, it revived bitter feelings about an incident that occurred at Highbury in May 1993.

Wright had not restrained himself after netting Arsenal’s decisive goal on his first outing against Steve Coppell’s side at Selhurst Park a few months earlier – “I expressed joy because Palace fans were being nasty,” he later clarified – and further soured the connection by touching the badge when he gave his team the lead in a match his old side urgently needed to win to avoid relegation. “After I scored I remember Nigel Martyn remarking: ‘Wrighty, what are you doing? You’re going to send us down,’” he recalled.

In 2006, a 42-year-old and former Wright, who had recently been voted as Palace’s greatest ever, helped to mend fences with those who held resentment by touching the Palace badge after scoring in a charity match organized for his former teammate Geoff Thomas. “We had our problems for a while but I think we’ve resolved them now,” he said, even if some continue to differ.

For Eze, who on Sunday meets Palace for the first time since his multi-million pound move, there are no such issues. As the player who scored the goal that won Palace’s first major trophy in the FA Cup final in May, he will always have a special place in the club’s history. That was part of an extraordinary run Wright would have been proud of, Eze netting six goals in his final eight Premier League games and three in the FA Cup after scoring his first England goal against Latvia in March.

Such scintillating form played a pivotal role in convincing Arsenal to outbid Tottenham for the services of the player they rejected as a teenager, although Eze has yet to score for them in the league despite going into this weekend having taken the joint-most shots (18, equal with Nottingham Forest’s Morgan Gibbs-White) without scoring. That includes an appearance for Palace against Chelsea on the opening day when his free-kick was controversially disallowed after Marc Guéhi was adjudged to have been less than one metre from the wall as the shot was taken.

A solitary strike against Port Vale in the Carabao Cup is a unsatisfactory return from 10 appearances for Arsenal, including seven starts. It is perhaps partially explained by the fact that Eze has largely been used in a No 10 role that he last filled at Queens Park Rangers rather than in a withdrawn role on the left of the attack, where he was utilized by Oliver Glasner at Palace and which often meant he was able to get on the end of Daniel Muñoz’s crosses, as in the final against Manchester City at Wembley.

“As long as I’m on the pitch and I’m given the chance to play and express myself in that setting then it doesn’t matter where I play,” Eze said in his interview with Wright. “Of course [the manager] has ideas and things he wants. But for me, I’m free, man.”

Mikel Arteta’s reaction to criticism that he played with the caution in Arsenal’s 1-1 draw with City last month, when Eze came off the bench to set up Gabriel Martinelli’s equaliser, has been to assign Eze with filling in for the injured captain, Martin Ødegaard, as the playmaker. It has aligned with six straight victories. Another Eze goal against Latvia this month and his impressive performance against Atlético Madrid in midweek have offered promising signs that the goals will soon start to come for him at Arsenal.

But if his Palace statistics are anything to go by, that is more probable to happen in the new year. Eze has scored nine goals in 68 Premier League games before 31 December at a rate of 0.13 compared with 25 in 85 (0.34) after. At the start of last season, he scored against Chelsea in August after having another free-kick chalked off controversially in the opening game against Brentford and had to wait until 29 December for his second.

While Guéhi was denied his move to Liverpool at the last minute this summer, Glasner is understood not to have objected to Eze’s exit because he felt it gave Palace an opportunity to reallocate the club record fee. Palace have the highest expected goals of any Premier League club, Yéremy Pino having stepped into Eze’s role since arriving from Villarreal, although the Spain international has yet to score or register an assist in the league despite some encouraging performances. Christantus Uche, who arrived on transfer deadline on an initial loan from the Spanish side Getafe and must start 10 matches for Palace to activate a £17m permanent move, was left out of the squad to face Bournemouth after arriving late back from national team commitments with Nigeria last week and has played only 57 minutes.

A quick reunion with players with whom Eze made a historic achievement for Palace in May will make Sunday an poignant occasion for him. He told Wright, who had to wait until he was 34 to win the title in his final season at Arsenal, that the FA Cup victory had given him the taste for trophies.

“I’ve seen what you can do, not just for your teammates or the staff,” he said. “But I can see what you can do to people when you win and you bring that kind of happiness to a place. That’s my aim.”

Just don’t anticipate him to express joy if he scores against Palace.