He’s lost the fans. He’s lost the dressing room. And he’s gone toe to toe with the club’s owners with some incendiary comments. And there are plenty out there who can’t quite believe he’s still in a job. That’s been the narrative of late around Selhurst Park.
Yet Oliver Glasner can still have the last laugh and end up delivering Crystal Palace’s most successful season ever.
An Impossible Turnaround?
Only two weeks’ ago it seemed impossible for him to continue. In January he made public the worst kept secret in football and announced he would be leaving the club at the end of the season, and form had collapsed.
The team was sliding down the Premier League and Glasner had somehow failed to steer them to automatic qualification to the knockout stages of the Europa Conference League. He accused the club of “completely abandoning” him and his players with their transfer strategy.
During an insipid performance in the away leg of their qualification play-off away at Zrinjski Mostar, his own fans were taunting him that he was getting sacked in the morning. Yet on Thursday the Bosnians were dispatched 2-0 in the second leg and Palace march on to the Round of 16.
Back to back wins in the Premier League, away at bitter rivals Brighton (always a great one to have on the CV) and a stuttering, nervy home win against an improving Wolves should put to bed any fears of being sucked into a relegation fight.
And if the season ends with an unprecedented two trophies – a Community Shield secured in August against Manchester City and a Europa Conference trophy – Glasner can walk away with his head held high.
Recruiting frustration
There’s little doubt it’s been a frustrating operating environment for Glasner. He will scratch his head on how it’s all gone so wrong so quickly after being recognized as Crystal Palace’s most successful manager ever only 12 months ago. He will argue that his ambition has not been matched by the Selhurst Park Board, and he has a point.
In the summer transfer window, when he would have been expecting major investment on the back of the FA Cup success, they sold their two most high-profile players: Eberechi Eze to Arsenal in August and Marc Guéhi to Manchester City in January. This sits on the back of losing Michael Olise to Bayern Munich and Joachim Anderson to Fulham the summer before.
Of course they still have some major talent with the likes of Adam Wharton, Ismaïla Sarr, Daniel Muñoz, Jean Philippe Mateta and Dean Henderson.
In January they broke their transfer record twice; Brennan Johnson signed for $47 million and he was quickly followed through the door by Jørgen Strand Larsen for up to $68 million. Larsen scored a brace in their crushing 3-2 loss to Burnley, but Johnson has yet to find the net. A less high-profile loanee, Evann Guessand, scored the late winner against Wolves and one against Zrinjski.
For Glasner, and so for Palace’s upward trajectory, it was too little, too late. The sliding doors moment opportunity to kick on had passed. Next season, they will have to start all over again.
Fall out with fans
In some areas there’s no doubt Glasner hasn’t helped himself. In the never-ending PR battle between manager, players and owners, he has made a few facepalming false steps. Managers rarely get away with saying anything to supporters other than how wonderful they are, so some of his recent comments have gone down like a lead balloon.
“I think a few who are so critical are not so humble and forget where they came from, and you get punished for this,” he went on, in his pre-match press conference for the Wolves fixture.
Supporters rightly feel a strong sense of ownership of their club – they remain as players, managers and owners come and go – and never like being told how to think or feel. Within 48 hours a banner was unfurled in the Holmesdale End – where the hardcore supporters gather – declaring Glasner was “finished” and “fans disrespected”. In Glasner’s defence, it wasn’t just aimed at him, with the banner lamenting “opportunities missed” and declaring the Board “inept”.
For Glasner and the club, it wasn’t a good look. The clamor for his sacking grew but, while other Premier League club owners have sacked outspoken managers this season, to his credit, Parish stood firm. He can see that his best chance of success this season lies with the Austrian.
And as for any disrguntled supporters, be careful what you wish for – to find a Palace manager with a better win rate than Glasner over a similar number of games you have to go back 32 years to Alan Smith between 1993-95, when the Eagles were playing in the second tier.
Missed opportunities
Opportunities missed feels like being at the heart of all this. Glasner took over from February 2024 from Roy Hodgson and in his first full season, 2024/25, he led the Eagles to the first major trophy in the club’s history, upsetting the odds by beating Manchester City 1-0 to win the FA Cup and qualifying for the Europa League. While the team finished 12th in the Premier League, they did so with a club record 53 points.
Within three months, at the start of the current season, they had added to the trophy cabinet with the Community Shield, played between the winners of the FA Cup and the Premier League, defeating Liverpool on penalties.
Yet the storm clouds were already beginning to form. Crystal Palace were demoted from the Europa League – their prize for winning the FA Cup – to the Conference League over a breach of multi-club ownership rules.
At the end of the transfer window, as fans were crying out for investment in the squad to take them to the next level, instead England international Eze, their most creative force, joined Arsenal in a $90 million deal.
England international, centre back, and Crystal Palace captain Guéhi, had a move to Liverpool pulled at the 11th hour after an enraged Glasner was said to have issued a “he goes and I go” ultimatum to Chairman Steve Parish.
It felt like a massive opportunity missed to bolster the squad and from that moment on, what should have been a season of celebration and growth has instead felt like one of turbulence and uncertainty.
Tumult and turmoil
Guéhi being sold to Manchester City in January was the last straw for Glasner and prompted him reveal to the world that he would leave in the summer when his contact ended, and the season looked like it was going to spectacularly implode as form collapsed and the manager tried to integrate new players.
The fear of a player exodus in the summer remains high. French international Mateta, a fan favorite, is certain to be first out after he failed to secure a move to AC Milan in January.
Big clubs will be circling around midfielder Adam Wharton, who has a reasonable chance of going to the World Cup, and Dean Henderson has had an impressive campaign in goal.
Steadying the ship
Yet amid this turmoil, Glasner has steadied the ship and the last three months of the season offer opportunity. It’s clear from the last three performances that the players are still playing for him and the dissenting voices in the crowd have quietened down. The new signings need to become staple first team players and the team looks in better shape with the return of Sarr from Senegal’s successful AFCON campaign and Muñoz from injury.
A new manager coming in now threatens not just the restabling of their Premier League status, but also their Europa Conference League aspirations. Crystal Palace remain favorites with the bookies to win it. And Glasner, who won the Europa League with Eintracht Frankfurt in 2022, has the capability of delivering the first European trophy in Palace’s history.
If anyone can pick success from the debris out of a tumultuous season, he can.
Parish looked in thoughtful mood sitting in the Directors box during the Wolves game; choosing to stick rather than twist on the managerial merry-go-round could be his best decision of the season.
