3 days ago
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Oliver Glasner was about 54 minutes into his latest press conference when he laid out the plan for how his truce with the Crystal Palace chair, Steve Parish, could work after they ate together this week.
“Steve and I left our dinner, and really both with a big smile we said: ‘Hey, we achieved so much all together here in the last 22 months. We don’t want and we don’t accept that this ends like the last three, four, five weeks have been. We don’t accept it.’ So we stick together, we work hard all together to get an ending this season that it deserves.
“And this was the commitment we had. And that’s what I told the players, and I really shared some insights. This is why we all now have a really good feeling, with the players coming back, that we will get this turnaround and get on a positive track.”
It was easy to be convinced, although after a fortnight in which the Austrian confirmed he would depart at the end of the season when his contract expires and Palace’s winless run stretched to 10 matches after defeat at Sunderland last weekend it must be remembered that things are never straightforward in this part of south London.
As usual, Glasner was engaging company as he articulated the reasons behind his outburst in his previous press conference, when he accused Parish of abandoning him and the rest of the squad that won the FA Cup eight months ago by selling the captain Marc Guéhi to Manchester City 24 hours before the game at the Stadium of Light. But Glasner insisted he had no regrets about speaking his mind so publicly, even if it may have put off any potential suitors such as Manchester United or Tottenham.
“No, I don’t think so, but that’s Oliver Glasner,” he said. “I want to be Oliver Glasner where I am. This is the most important thing. I want that I’m accepted how I am. If somebody says: ‘I don’t like this emotional guy,’ then it’s better not to sign because I think I can’t change. I’m always working to develop, but I won’t completely change.”
For Parish, who is believed to have considered sacking Glasner after the Sunderland game before sticking with him mainly owing to a lack of alternatives, that is a reality he has got used to since he replaced Roy Hodgson with the manager who led Eintracht Frankfurt to the Europa League in 2022. It is no coincidence that a similar clash with the Eintracht board over transfers led to Glasner’s departure from the club he guided to the knockout stages of the Champions League, and that his spell at Wolfsburg ended after its second season after he accused the sporting director of failing to keep promises over signings.
The rapprochement with Parish means Glasner is on course to pass the 100-game mark with a club for the first time since his four seasons with Lask in Austria. With doubts over Jean-Philippe Mateta’s immediate future and a desperate need to sign an experienced replacement for Guéhi even with the return of Chadi Riad from a long-term knee injury, the problems will not go away just because Daniel Muñoz and Ismaïla Sarr are back from injury and the Africa Cup of Nations respectively.
Glasner revealed he had agreed with the board last February that Guéhi would be sold after Palace rejected offers worth up to £70m from Newcastle and Tottenham for the England defender. The sudden departure of the sporting director Dougie Freedman the following month after the former Scotland forward is understood to have become frustrated at the lack of funds made available in the January window left Palace’s search for Guéhi’s replacement and other transfer plans in limbo as they entered the summer. Matt Hobbs, the former Wolves sporting director, was eventually appointed to replace Freedman but Glasner was not happy that most of the £67.5m fee received for Eberechi Eze from Arsenal was not reinvested in his squad as the club prepared to compete in Europe for the first time.
The arrival of Brennan Johnson from Spurs for a club-record £35m was a sign of Palace’s intent for January, and the returns of Muñoz and Sarr for Sunday’s game at home to Chelsea will give the squad a much-needed boost. Daichi Kamada and Eddie Nketiah are expected back in the next couple of weeks.
“I tell the Palace fans: ‘Stay calm, trust in the people in the club, they’re doing their best,’ and that’s what we always say when I talk to the chairman,” Glasner said. “The good thing is we all want the same for Crystal Palace, and that’s why I reacted in that way, because I still want the best for Crystal Palace.
“I’m not the guy who says: ‘I don’t care what happens here, in four months I will go back to Austria and whatever.’ No, I can’t be like this and I think this is part of why I’m successful as a person and as a manager. Because for me, spending 60, 70, 80 hours a week away from my family, this must be more than a job. And it is more than a job for me.”
