How Bristol City & Crystal Palace stole Plymouth Argyle’s millions with future Premier League star | OneFootball

Yannick Bolasie provided both Bristol City and Crystal Palace with a hefty profit, but Plymouth Argyle didn't get the same.

Having enjoyed and experienced an eclectic and intriguing career path, Yannick Bolasie earned Bristol City a tidy profit, whilst earning Crystal Palace millions for his services; something that will irritate Plymouth Argyle.

The Lyon-born Democratic Republic of Congo international, who has 50 caps for his nation, grew up in London and came through the youth setup at Rushden and Diamonds.

He began his professional, or at least senior, career with Hillingdon Borough before moving to Malta to play a season with Floriana – ahead of returning to England to join Plymouth Argyle in the summer of 2008.

With the Pilgrims, he took his time to get himself involved in the first-team setup with loan spells back at Rushden and Diamonds and then at Barnet but, after beginning to breakthrough during their 2009/10 Championship season, in which they were relegated, he came to life in League One.

Financial issues meant that Plymouth were forced into the bargain sale of Bolasie to Bristol City, with the Robins pinching him for just £90,000 after the exciting and entertaining winger had begun to put up some numbers and show some effectiveness in the third-tier, scoring seven goals in 35 appearances that season.

Yannick Bolasie began to show brilliance at Bristol City before Crystal Palace

Bolasie arrived at Ashton Gate in the summer of 2011 with the Robins under the management of now Heart of Midlothian boss Derek McInnes.

Bolasie, with a mercurial talent and a desire to showcase his skills, often struggled to find consistency at Ashton Gate, albeit he wasn’t helped by being in and out of the side.

He got himself more of a run of games in the second-half of the campaign, and those performances prompted Dougie Freedman’s Crystal Palace to shell out a fee believed to be in the region of £500,000.

As Freedman has gone on to prove as Sporting Director at Palace nowadays, he certainly had an eye for a player or a rough diamond that he believed he could polish up into a gem.

Bolasie would certainly fall into that category as, in his first season as an Eagles player, he became an integral cog in the exciting and entertaining, almost chaotic Palace side.

Freedman was in charge up until his departure for Bolton Wanderers in October, but, after a bright start, he only continued to get even better following the appointment of Ian Holloway.

Forming part of the exciting wing duo of himself and Wilfried Zaha, with Glenn Murray through the middle, Palace were extremely fun to watch as they eventually defeated Watford in the play-off final to gain promotion to the Premier League.

Plymouth never saw the Premier League millions with Yannick Bolasie

In the Premier League, Bolasie went on to continue to establish himself as an excellent player, and continued to leave Plymouth supporters feeling regretful over how and why he had to depart the club a few years’ earlier.

After three seasons of Palace establishing themselves in the top-flight, Bolasie once again had to prove himself under a variety of managers with Holloway, Tony Pulis, Neil Warnock and Alan Pardew all in charge before his departure in the summer of 2016.

After some notable performances in the 2015/16 season, especially against Manchester City and Liverpool both away from home, the skilful Bolasie was signed by an ambitious and big spending Everton side for a fee of around £25 million.

Unfortunately for Bolasie, his time at Goodison Park was plagued significantly by injuries, and he eventually departed in the summer of 2021 for Caykur Rizespor after loan stints at Aston Villa, Anderlecht, Sporting CP and Middlesbrough.

In the 2023/24 season, he returned to English football for a short stint at Swansea City, but has since spent the last couple of years in Brazil; firstly with Criciuma and now with Cruzeiro.

The 36-year-old played for three clubs in the EFL as he began to emerge as a talent, prior to the second-half of his career, and two of those clubs made huge profit on his services – but Plymouth were not the team that benefitted, despite him breaking through at Home Park.