Steve Parish breaks silence after selling Marc Guehi to Man City and not Liverpool

Crystal Palace sold captain Marc Guehi to Manchester City this week, with Oliver Glasner publicly criticizing the decision and Steve Parish considering firing the manager

Steve Parish has spoken about Marc Guehi's exit from Crystal Palace(Image: Getty Images)

Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish has suggested tensions backstage regarding the choice to offload Marc Guehi to Manchester City on Monday.

Guehi finalized his move to City after the Eagles opted to capitalize on their skipper mid-season, rather than forfeit him for nothing in the summer. He was poised to join Liverpool on deadline day last summer, only for Parish to abort the deal at the eleventh hour.

The Palace supremo had disagreed with manager Oliver Glasner and determined that the sale couldn't proceed because the Eagles lacked a replacement. Nevertheless, the decision has been made to offload the England international in the January transfer window.

Guehi's contract was set to expire in June, meaning the 25-year-old defender would have departed on a free transfer had Palace not agreed to conduct business with City this month.

Glasner has publicly challenged the decision to sell Guehi, stating at the weekend he and the players were being "abandoned completely" by the hierarchy.

His inflammatory remarks compelled Parish to contemplate dismissing the manager, who announced last week that he will depart at the end of the season when his contract expires.

Guehi has joined Manchester City(Image: Getty Images)

Parish ultimately chose not to dismiss Glasner, who has been linked with Manchester United following the departure of Ruben Amorim. But the Palace chief's words after Guehi left the London club suggested the disagreement.

"There is never an easy time to bid farewell to a player of Marc's calibre and character, but we respect his desire to play football at the highest level," Parish said in a club statement before going on to hail his character and contributions to Palace.

He concluded: "He will stay in all our hearts, and – although it is sad to bid him farewell – he deserves to depart with our very best wishes for the future. Good luck, Marc – and thank you."

The transfer has been finalized merely days after Glasner publicly condemned the choice following a 2-1 loss to Sunderland in the Premier League. "I feel we are being abandoned completely," he said on Saturday.

"Because I can't play many players. They did everything they could and this has been going on for weeks and months now. And we have 12, 13 players from the squad available and we feel no support.

"The worst thing is selling our captain one day before playing a Premier League game. We are preparing, it's the first week we are training since September, and then we are selling our captain one day before a game. So I have no understanding of this.

"I have always kept my mouth [closed], but I can't because I have to defend these players, because it was the 35th game today.

"Yes we get under pressure here and we are unlucky. But again, you can't react, we can't help them, it makes it really tough tonight."