Charlotte FC officially replace Wilfried Zaha with former Premier League star | OneFootball

The transfer market is open and ready for business. Over the last couple of days, we’ve discussed plenty of signings being completed for this second part of the regular season.

A little over a month ago, we discussed the possibility of a former Premier League player joining Charlotte FC after the club lost one of its most important attacking pieces in Wilfried Zaha.

Well, now it’s official. The Crown becomes another team that packed the MLS with a European superstar who had a great passage at Newcastle United.

Charlotte FC signed former Premier League superstar Allan Saint-Maximin

The French forward arrives to fill the massive void left by Wilfried Zaha's departure.

The Ivorian was only on loan in MLS, and when the two sides failed to reach an agreement to extend his stay, the Crown set out to find an attacker with a similar profile, and they appear to have found exactly that.

Let me explain. If you haven’t watched Saint-Maximin at Newcastle, Lens or the Saudi League, he is agile, really fast and a player who can consistently win his one-on-one duels and creates constant danger in the final third, much like Zaha did down the wing.

“Charlotte FC announced the Club has signed French forward Allan Saint-Maximin to a three-year Designated Player contract, which will run through the 2028-29 season. Saint-Maximin will occupy a Designated Player spot and international roster slot on the Club’s current roster.”

This season, the French attacker played 29 games, recording seven goals and five assists.

To be clear, while we’ll discuss his time at Newcastle and review his stats, Charlotte FC fans should know you’re not getting a traditional goalscorer.

Instead, Saint-Maximin is a dynamic winger, a relentless threat on the flank, giving dangerous crosses and scoring passes to the striker.

At his prime, the former RC Lens winger played 124 matches for Newcastle FC, recording 13 goals and delivering 21 assists.

However, the danger he posed to Premier League defenders was remarkable. During this time, he was bouncing on a move to FC Barcelona and other top clubs.

That was several years ago; while the speed and agility remain, Charlotte is getting a more mature, disciplined winger, not the reckless, all-attack version of Saint-Maximin from his early Newcastle days.

At 29 years old, the French player still has time to unlock his potential and return to the version of himself that we knew in the Premier League.

If there is one place in MLS where he can rediscover that level, it is with the Crown, as their tactical system allows it, just as it did with Wilfried Zaha.