Crystal Palace and Christian Benteke is a relationship that has not quite worked out.

The Belgium international moved to the Eagles in a club-record deal that cost the club a total of £27m.

Since then, he has struggled for form.

The 30-year-old, valued at £7.9m by Transfermarkt, has made a total of 129 appearances for the club but has scored just 26 goals.

That run looks all the worse when one considers that Benteke actually scored 15 goals in 36 outings in his first league season, and since then, he has not managed more than three strikers in a campaign.

And now, The Athletic reports that the club are preparing for his exit.

The ex-Liverpool star has a contract that expires at the end of the season and the report claims that he is more likely to leave than stay at this point.

Palace are on the verge of signing Jean-Philippe Mateta from Bundesliga club Mainz, and he is likely to offer a like-for-like replacement for Benteke.

The striker is unlikely to be the only player leaving the club for nothing in the summer, either, with a number of players in Palace’s squad having deals that run out this summer.

They include Mamadou Sakho, Scott Dann, Gary Cahill, and Patrick van Aanholt.

GIVEMESPORT’S Harry Sherlock says…

Yeah, Benteke hasn’t been good for quite some time.

He is a lump of a striker, he is not very quick, he is not clinical, and the dribbling ability that he has does not open the door to goalscoring chances.

Per WhoScored, he does average 2.2 shots per game, but his pass success rate is just 58.2%, he averages a mere 0.3 dribbles and 0.6 key passes.

Moving him on and replacing him with a striker like Mateta makes all the sense in the world.

The Mainz star, after all, has scored 10 goals in 17 games in all competitions already this season.