Christian Benteke 'happy' at Crystal Palace as striker admits 'surprise' at Sam Allardyce exit

Content | Christian Benteke says he is happy at Crystal Palace
Getty Images

Christian Benteke has insisted he is happy at Crystal Palace as he labelled Sam Allardyce's departure from the club as a "surprise".

Allardyce quit as manager of the Eagles in May after exactly five months in charge and cited family reasons for his shock decision to walk away from Palace, who he helped stay in the Premier League.

Benteke, who joined Palace in a club-record £27m deal from Liverpool last summer, admits the 62-year-old's exit came as a surprise but insisted it hasn't affected his future at Selhurst Park.

"It was a surprise for me," Benteke told Sky Sports News HQ. "I was on holiday when I heard. He's a big man, he knows what he's doing.

"I'm still happy because I am playing the way I want to play and the last few weeks the team did well."

One of Allardyce's winter transfer window signings who played a key role in helping Palace avoid the drop into the Championship was Mamadou Sakho.

The Eagles fear they could be priced out of a permanent move for the defender as Liverpool want as much as £30million for the 27-year-old.

And Benteke added: "I tried to convince him to stay. But at the end of the day, it's up to him. He knows what he needs and what he wants to do.

"Obviously it won't be easy because of the demand, but we'll see. Hopefully, he's going to stay."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in