Oliver Glasner was already in the stands at the away game against Everton FC on Monday, and he will be taking a seat on the bench of his new club Crystal Palace for the first time against Burnley FC this Saturday. The former Eintracht Frankfurt coach succeeds Roy Hodgson at the Premier League club in south London, who was reportedly facing sacking but is now stepping down of his own free will – in his words, to “advance plans to appoint a new coach “, as was originally planned for next summer.
The Palace supporters are now hoping that Glasner, who is 27 years younger than him, will provide the kind of football with which Eintracht sensationally won the Europa League under his leadership in 2022. But first the Austrian has to save the club from relegation to England’s second division.
Two games that Glasner absolutely has to win
With 13 games to go before the end of the season, Palace is still within reach of the teams in the relegation places in the Premier League table. Glasner faces two of them in the first few days of his term in office: Burnley on Saturday (4 p.m.) and Luton Town at the beginning of March are potentially season-deciding games that he absolutely has to win.
In any case, he won’t get a reprieve in England, especially since the team’s form is miserable. The only win so far in the 2024 calendar year came on January 30th against Sheffield United; This was followed by significant defeats against Brighton (1:4) and Chelsea (1:3) and a draw against Everton (1:1) on Monday. A central problem is the defense: in the last 14 league games, the team has not managed to stay without conceding at least one goal.
The situation is also increasingly worrying the fans. At previous games, they unrolled banners criticizing the perceived backward development under chairman and co-owner Steve Parish – accompanied by the chants typical of the scene. With the Holmesdale Fanatics, Crystal Palace has a European-style ultra group that is rare in English football. They set the mood at home games at the venerable Selhurst Park, but they also make their voices heard when things aren’t going well.
Glasner knows how to deal with organized fans from Frankfurt. “I’m looking forward to working with the talented team, getting to know the club’s fans and experiencing the atmosphere at Selhurst Park that I’ve heard so much about,” he was quoted as saying in the statement about his signing.
The timing is delicate
Glasner is said to have been the preferred candidate of the Palace decision-makers around Parish. According to rumors, he was also an issue at other, larger Premier League clubs. He has now signed a contract with the Londoners until the summer of 2026 with the option for another year. The timing is tricky: The winter transfer window is closed, and in the few weeks until the end of the season Glasner will only be able to partially implement his tactical ideas and ideas with the existing staff – despite his preference for “blurring” systems. In addition, there are injuries to important players such as the two offensive forces Michael Olise and Eberechi Eze, who together scored almost 40 percent of the team’s Premier League goals.
In the Bundesliga, Glasner has proven that he can bring faltering teams on track and prepare them for success. But in Wolfsburg and Frankfurt he had more time to do this. There are a handful of teams in England with Nottingham Forest, Luton, Burnley and Sheffield that are in greater danger of relegation. But Palace does not have a reassuring lead and it is now up to Glasner to prevent the club from slipping further into the danger zone.
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If things go well, the people around us will continue to look upwards next season. Crystal Palace does not want to have to deal with the relegation battle permanently. The aim is to ensure Premier League mediocrity, the medium-term ambition is occasional excursions into the European club competitions below the Champions League. They believe they have signed the right man in Europa League winner Glasner. His reputation for being able to develop young players like Olise also spoke in his favor, which led to improvements in the general quality of play in Wolfsburg and Frankfurt, which in both cases also had a relatively quick impact on the table position.
And shouldn’t it go well? Then Glasner’s time at Crystal Palace – and possibly in the Premier League – could be a short adventure. When things suddenly didn’t go as they should last season, the season after Frankfurt’s Europa League victory, the public pressure seemed to be too much for him. After a defeat in Hoffenheim, he attacked a journalist in the press conference, and the club also had to subsequently correct one of his statements (his player Makoto Hasebe had “blood in his urine”).
Board spokesman Axel Hellmann then criticized Glasner in an interview. The unrest ultimately led to Eintracht ending their collaboration with Glasner after the season. His new job at Crystal Palace is now a huge opportunity for him, but it also involves considerable risk.
