CRYSTAL PALACE have signed Connor Wickham from Sunderland on a five-year deal.
The striker moves to Selhurst Park for an initial fee of £7m after four years at the Stadium of Light.
Wickham told the club's official site: "I think I needed the fresh start, I had four years up north and it's been a bit stop-start. Now I've come back home and I can settle down and see my family a bit more and hopefully let my football do the talking."
"I spoke to the gaffer last week and he said all the right things about the club and I've got friends here who also told me some very good things," he said.
"I looked at the team before I arrived here and the signings that have been brought in, and the potential to score goals and the chances that could be created was a massive influence. Hopefully I can add to that talent and make the squad stronger."
Wickham scored 15 goals in 91 games for Sunderland and helped them avoid the drop in 2013-14 when he netted five in their last six games.
The 22-year-old joined the Black Cats in 2011 from Ipswich, where he made his debut aged just 16 years and 11 days.
But the England Under-21 international struggled to make a consistent impact at Sunderland after an £8million move and was loaned out to Leeds and Sheffield Wednesday during his time in the north-east.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here