Crystal Palace co-chairman Steve Parish reckons Wilfried Zaha’s time at Manchester United set the winger back in his football career.

The Eagles re-signed the 22-year-old for an undisclosed fee, believed to be about £6m, in January, having been signed by Sir Alex Ferguson two years’ previous for £15m.

Zaha completed the 2013-14 season on loan to Palace, guiding them to promotion to the Premier League, before completing his switch to Old Trafford.

By then, Sir Alex had retired as United boss and David Moyes had taken over, and by January last year, out-of-favour Zaha had been loaned to Cardiff City until the end of the season.

Having started this season back on loan at Selhurst Park, Zaha’s move was made permanent by Alan Pardew in January.

Parish said: “It did not work for him [Zaha] up there and we came to a good arrangement with Manchester United.

“He’s a great lad, and I would not say it has damaged him, but that experience of him going there and it not working out set him back a little bit.”

He added: “I don’t know what happened up there, but it is certainly not all one-sided.

“There was a change of management just as he went there, Sir Alex bought him and he was not there when he arrived.

“There’s been a bit of a maelstrom there over the past couple of years with the transition of the squad they had and Wilf got caught up in that a bit.

“There was no malice [from United] and they think he is a good player.”