SO ANOTHER Eagle is soaring out of Selhurst Park, as Wilfried Zaha’s eventual move to Manchester United has been agreed.

Zaha will at least stay at Palace on loan until the end of the season.

As a Palace fan, his departure was inevitable but I can’t help but find the timing of this move strange.

After an incredible unbeaten run of 14 games earlier in the season the Eagles incredibly found themselves in the automatic promotion places.

After coming back down to earth a bit, they are currently comfortably in the play-off places and only two points from second place.

So why sell your best player now?

I can understand the logic of allowing Zaha to leave if Palace were in mid-table mediocrity with little hope of promotion (hello Charlton!).

But Palace could end up in the unusual position of winning promotion and then seeing their star player wave goodbye.

I can’t help but think Palace would have been better off waiting until the summer before deciding what to do.

If they don’t win promotion, then you sell Zaha.

If you go up, you keep him and play him every week in the Premier League, where his value could well increase.

I find it hard to believe Zaha’s value will have dropped significantly between now and the summer.

If Man Utd or another big team were so keen on Zaha, they would try to sign him again in a few months.

The sum of money Palace will be getting (£10m rising to £15m) is good for the club, and I hope some of it will be used to boost the squad.

And, as Julian Speroni, Mile Jedinak, Glenn Murray and Yannick Bolasie are proving, Palace are far from a one-man team.

But the timing of this transfer is odd.