Crystal Palace prospect Jesse Derry set to leave after rejecting contract offer
Crystal Palace youngster Jesse Derry is set to leave the club after rejecting a professional contract.
The 17-year-old forward has informed Palace that it is his intention to leave in the summer when his existing scholarship contract expires and that he will not sign fresh terms.
He is believed to be concerned about a perceived lack of pathway at the club, with no apparent medium to long-term route into the first-team set-up.
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Derry is the son of Palace cult hero Shaun, who captained the team which avoided relegation from the Championship on the final day of the 2009-10 season after being deducted 10 points following the club entering administration in January 2010.
Shaun returned to Palace after retiring as a player to become a coach but was controversially sacked as first-team coach in January 2023 by then-manager Patrick Vieira and subsequently came back for a brief spell under Roy Hodgson after Vieira's departure.
Derry was named Under-18s player of the season last term after scoring 16 goals in 22 appearances and has been recognised on the international stage with England Under-18s.
He was named in the England Under-17s squad for their European U17 Championship qualifying matches in November 2023 and scored four times in three games.
Derry has made nine appearances for Palace's Under-21 side — of which five have come in Premier League 2 with a single start, three in the Premier League International Cup where he scored during a 2-1 defeat by RB Leipzig last month, and one as a late substitute in November's 4-1 EFL Trophy defeat by Peterborough.
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Crystal Palace, ambition and the quandary over risk versus reward
Palace, whose £30million academy redevelopment is set to be complete later this year with a hydrotherapy centre, will be due significant compensation from any team who decides to sign him.
Should an agreement not be reached over the fee, it will be determined at a tribunal by the Professional Footballers' Compensation Committee.
Barring any unexpected change of heart, he will become the third academy player to leave in quick succession, with 17-year-old striker Samuel Lusale departing for Manchester United in September, while Under-15s midfielder Reggie Watson moved to Chelsea in the summer.
Watson, who made his Chelsea Under-18 debut aged 15, is the son of former Palace midfielder Ben, who emerged through the club's academy to make his senior debut aged 17 in 2003 and made 189 appearances for the club.
As well as for Derry, Palace will also receive hefty compensation for both Lusale and Watson.
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Speaking of being deselected by Arsenal two summers ago, Smith says, 'It came at the right time — I sort of knew it was coming.' It was certainly not the nadir many often assume it to be. 'The worst moment of my time at Arsenal?' he says. 'Knowing that I wasn't the smartest in the dressing room. Me and Bukayo (Saka, now a first-team star at the club and a full England international) used to have a competition on who was smarter. I remember sitting in the changing room when we all got our GCSE results at 16. We got (the) emails one by one, and he just beat me.' Advertisement Saka, too, has his own pathway, and is one of the poster boys for the EPPP and the academy system. Saunders points out that, in the Euros final against Spain last July, Saka was playing in a front four with Kane (the German Bundesliga's 2023-24 top scorer), Jude Bellingham (2023-24 player of the year in Spain's La Liga) and Phil Foden (who won the same honour in the Premier League that season): 'All of them have in common that they're English and they've come through our academy system — each of them taking ownership of their pathway.' Saunders and pathways. He is wonderfully relentless, and, just once, lets himself revel in 15 years of success in developing the next generation. 'There was a time,' he recalls, 'when people said, 'We're not tactically or technically at the level of our European counterparts', to the point now where we say, 'We've got so many amazing No 10s — how do we fit them into the national team?'' (Top photos: Brennan Johnson, left, and Liam Delap; Getty Images)
