Fresh on the back of our 6-1 victory over Halmstads BK as we closed out our pre-season tour and training camp of Scandinavia, Belgian striker Christian Benteke was clearly in buoyant mood following the full-time whistle.
The 27-year-old didn’t have the best of season’s last year as his confidence seemed to bottom out and that was definitely reflected in his performances and his threat in front of goal – three in 31 appearances – but Palace struggled full stop until Roy Hodgson got his hands on us and slowly but surely worked his magic as we avoided the drop back into the Championship.
It’s a big year for Benteke now. There are a lot of fans who are of a mind to simply move him on and cash him in for whatever we can get back given the reported £27million deal we struck with Liverpool, but that view isn’t a consensus, plenty of others believe he’ll fare better under Hodgson having had pre-season to rebuild his confidence and they believe he’ll become the threat we saw at Aston Villa in particular.
Taking to the pitch against Halmstads, he did open the scoring for us in the 13th minute before he needed to be substituted having taken a knock. With little news on his injury, fingers crossed the substitution was only precautionary, hopefully, it’s a sign of things to come from him once again.
He certainly seems happy.
Happy to finish our pre-season camp with a big win. Let’s keep this up! 🙌🏾🦅 @CPFC #CPFC pic.twitter.com/Sip6FEDlg4
— Christian Benteke (@chrisbenteke) July 17, 2018
this is YOUR season ❤️????
— JOE FARRELL (@joeffarrell) July 17, 2018
Big Ben chimes again ???????? you’ve got this ????
— Rob Bedford (@robbedford32) July 17, 2018
We all believe in you ❤️????❤️????
— Muscateeress (@Muscateeress1) July 18, 2018
Keep it up Big Ben! We all love you mate.
— LM. (@LucasM0397) July 17, 2018
So enjoyed watching the live stream, well done Christian
— Ruby Spanswick (@RubySpanswick) July 17, 2018
Hows the injury?
— Nathan (@NathJW11) July 17, 2018
Please don’t be injured ????
— Jed Francis (@jfrancis9977) July 17, 2018