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Crystal Palace are always on the lookout for talented young players who have the potential to become elite and now the fight for one teenager is heating up.

Dougie Freedman is a real expert in recruitment and often provides some absolute gems for Crystal Palace, such as signing Adam Wharton last January in a £20m deal which soon looked like a bargain.

However, in the summer which has just passed, the players brought in were not of this profile and rather were older and more experienced.

This has likely impacted the start of the season, with an exciting replacement for Michael Olise not signed and now the Eagles sit in 18th place in the Premier League.

Now, Crystal Palace are targeting a move to sign an 18-year-old who is catching the eye in Sweden.

READ MORE: Who is Dougie Freedman? The Crystal Palace Sporting Director linked with Manchester United switch

Crystal Palace prepared to fight to sign Bazoumana Toure

In the summer, Ismaila Sarr was signed as the most likely replacement for Olise, with both being right-wingers – albeit with completely different profiles of players.

After Sarr was signed, Crystal Palace turned attention to Bazoumana Toure of Hammarby in Sweden.

Toure was attracting interest from the likes of Bayer Leverkusen at the time and since then, he has only continued attracting the attention of some of Europe’s elite.

According to Fotboll Direkt, Crystal Palace are joined by Celtic, Bayer Leverkusen, Eintracht Frankfurt and Benfica in having an interest in Toure.

The Swedish outlet explains that after some ‘very strong development’, the teenager is ‘growing like crazy’ at Hammarby – with this not going unnoticed as Crystal Palace continue to keep close tabs on him.

The Eagles even had scouts watching Toure in action last weekend as he played 86 minutes in a 1-0 defeat to AIK.

How much would Toure cost Dougie Freedman?

In order to sign Toure, the Eagles will need to take some risks as he is far from a sure thing guaranteed to get goals and assists in English football.

Toure is undoubtedly the highest-profile player in the Allsvenskan and therefore by the league’s standards he is likely to end up quite costly.

The report has hinted that Hammarby would demand a fee of around €10m (£8.4m) in order to part with their Ivorian forward who is continuing to gain suitors.

Toure has scored five goals and two assists so far this season for Hammarby – with the season running this calendar year. If the statements about his improvements turn out to be true then we imagine this tally will only continue to grow.

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