You mean Benteke is our best striker? What has Benteke done to deserve such a praise?
He has 900 minutes with no goals or assists this season.
Since he joined, he has only managed 15 goals or assist in 3700 minutes in the PL (excluding 2 penalties). During this time he has 3 goals and 1 assist for the national team (excluding the Gibraltar match lol), so at the best he's a decent striker not a 20+ million one.
He used to take a lot of penalties for Aston Villa too, so whoever followed these facts knew he was not gonna be great ever since his transfer to Liverpool.

Ok, screw my opinion. Facts are these: Benteke for Palace has scored and assisted 15 in 3700 minutes in the PL.
Dwight Gayle has scored and assisted for Palace 15 in the PL (excluding 1 penalty) in 2700 minutes. 25 in 3600 minutes in all competitions.
The difference is hugely in favour of Gayle. And let's take into consideration the rest of their involvement, not just the goals or assists: does Benteke run more that Gayle? Does he recover more? Is he better in serving his teammates? Is he more technically gifted? Why should Benteke then cost more and Gayle less than 15 million???

Yet, we all believe that the managers "were correct in keeping Gayle as a sub". No, they weren't they should have given him playing time. He got that in the Championship and he rocked.
Take a look at this stat right here: [Link]

Add up the goals and assists for every player. Then take away the goals from penalties (where there's the red 11). Compare the players according to the minutes the got. You clearly see the importance of Gayle for his team. If Chris Wood, Glenn Murray or Tammy Abraham can be decent PL strikers, surely he can too.
He's only played 300 minutes this season and already he should have had a goal for Newcastle, but the ref wrongly disallowed it. He's gonna be good in the long term no matter what you say.
The thing is....what team is going to have the intelligent manager to use him?

I didn't mention my opinion of Gayle. I said Bentenke is the best striker at our club. We only have two (excluding the youngsters). Your comparison of Gayle and Bentenke ignores the fact that Gayle never showed himself capable of playing the lone striker role and he was too often bullied off the ball. Would I still like Gayle at the club? Yes, but only alongside Big Ben, not as an alternative. To say Bentenke is only worth £20 million in today's market seems blind, to me. Once he's back fit and playing alongside Zaha we will see him return to the beast he can be. Most of the players you listed are theoretical possibilities rather than any sure bet, whereas Bentenke showed with 15 goals in the PL in his first season what he can do for us.

He was also SHYTE

The Voice of Reason In An Otherwise Mediocre World

He was there because he got so much playing time. Had he not cost the huge amount of money he would not have played 3100 minutes last season.
With so much playing time he scored very little. Forget the actual number per se. It's about the goals to minutes ratio.
Many, many strikers would have scored more than him given those minutes.

I don;t necessarily say we should sell him for only 20 million. But to get funds to make new transfer and improve the squad you need to get cash in first. I'm just saying that some teams might want Benteke, but I don;t see anyone offering a tone of money for him, certainly not more than 25 million at how he's proven himself. And that would be a good thing for Palace in my opinion! You could get players of his caliber or even better with that kind of money. I tell you, Nils Petersen from Freiburg is a lot better than Benteke in the big tall striker up front role (if you think Gayle or others couldn't fit in that role) and he costs 5-6 TIMES less, around 5 million.

Now if we sold Benteke for 35 million I wouldn't be sad, but I doubt anyone would offer that. If you could free funds from somewhere else it would be nice too, but who else to sell? Especially as investments will be triple checked now with PL money coming in from next year not being a certainty. I doubt players will be brought in with big money unless some funds are freed. I gave the solution with selling Ben, as he's not an awesome PL striker. Decent yes, not awesome. I see us getting relegated with him.
Now imagine this formation after the January window (ok, screw Gayle as let's say 15 million are a lot, there are more options too):

...........Diego Alves (formerly of Valencia).....
.................(Hennessey, Speroni)..............

Almeida/Rafael/Janmaat, Dann, Sakho, Schlupp
(Ward), (Fosu Mensah), (Tomkins), (PVA)

Zaha, Cabaye, Milivojevic, Townsend
(Hermann),(RLC), (McArthur), (Hernani/Alessandrini)

................Asamoah Gyan/Emenike................
............Obafemi Martins/ Nils Petersen..........

That would be 7 ins:
Almeida (cause Benfica missed on Europe this year), Rafael (cause Lyon now use Tete as first right back) or Janmaat (lost his place at Watford) as a right back
Hermann from Moenchengladbach would be a realistic solution as I doubt someone like Nani (although not getting enough playing time at Lazio) would be convinced to come as long as Zaha is here
Hernani from Porto or Alessandrini (formerly of Marseille, now in the MLS) would rock the PL, I tell you. They're something like Knockaert from Brighton, who will be one of the best wingers in England in the years to come
+ 4 new strikers

All for the price of 1 out: Benteke

Edited by mattteo (15 Nov 2017 1.34pm)

I think you either don't know that name (Knockaert) or don't know who the player is, cause he's pretty darn good

Is this a joke???? Who gives a s*** if he takes a freekick over a wall??? He’s crap, he takes a freekick over a bar. This thred is comedy!