Tomiyasu has passed a Crystal Palace medical, 13 months after Arsenal tore up his contract

Takehiro Tomiyasu has passed a medical at Crystal Palace and is expected to sign within the next two days, which completes one of the stranger 13-month stretches any Premier League defender has had.

He arrives on a free transfer, and he arrived at the club before the deal did. Palace invited him into pre-season training as a trialist, watched him, put him in front of their medical staff, and only then committed. For a player with his injury record that order of operations is the whole story.

Arsenal tore up the contract while he was injured

On 4 July 2025, Arsenal and Tomiyasu agreed to terminate a contract that still had a year to run. He was 26, he had just had knee surgery, and he had played six minutes of football across the whole of that final season. Arsenal did not sell him or loan him out. They wrote him off the books and let him go and get fit somewhere else, which is a rare thing to do to a player who had been a first-choice full-back two seasons earlier.

He got fit somewhere else. Ajax signed him in December 2025 on a short deal that ran to 30 June, and he played nine Eredivisie matches for a total of 217 minutes, most of them off the bench. Four of those nine ended in clean sheets. One ended in a red card, 14 minutes into a comeback from injury, a yellow for holding a Heracles forward that VAR upgraded. It was not a triumphant half-season, but it was the first time since 2024 that he had been available week to week, and it was enough.

Enough, specifically, for Japan. When Kaoru Mitoma failed a fitness test on a hamstring before the 2026 World Cup, Hajime Moriyasu called up Tomiyasu, who had not played for his country since a qualifier against Syria on 11 June 2024. Two years out of the national side, and he went to a World Cup.

Palace have lost both first-choice centre-backs

The other half of this is Palace’s problem rather than his. They have sold their two best defenders in consecutive windows. Marc Guehi went to Manchester City in January for an initial £20m. Maxence Lacroix went to Chelsea last month in a deal worth more than £50m. Oscar Mingueza came in on a free in July, and that was the extent of the rebuild until now.

All of that lands on Pierre Sage, who replaced Oliver Glasner in June on a three-year contract after winning the Coupe de France with Lens. Sage inherits a squad that won the Conference League in Leipzig in May and therefore starts a Europa League campaign this season, which means more matches spread across fewer fit defenders. Tomiyasu can play centre-back or right-back. Palace need bodies in both positions and they are getting him for nothing.

The catch is the obvious one

Eighty-four appearances in four years at Arsenal, 65 of them in the league, is the number that explains why he was available on a free at 27. He signed from Bologna in August 2021 and was a first-choice defender when fit, able to fill in at either full-back position or in the middle. Calf, hamstring and knee problems meant he was often not fit.

Palace have structured this as sensibly as anyone could. No fee, a trial period first, a medical after they had already seen him train for weeks. If his body holds up they have a Japan international centre-back for free in a season with European football in it. If it does not, they have lost nothing but a squad number. That is a reasonable bet at 27, and it is more of a bet than most clubs were willing to make on him a year ago.

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