With Crystal Palace still winless after eight games, equalling their worst start to a Premier League season, and Tottenham Hotspur up next on Sunday, Oliver Glasner is a man under pressure.
His position as manager is not yet under threat, but there is much for him to ponder as he grapples with the problem of his side’s failure to win and, just as significantly, even put in performances that give a sense they are close to clicking.
The Austrian spoke to the media for 37 minutes in his latest pre-match press conference on Friday. Here, The Athletic analyses his comments.
On dealing with the pressure and the relentless nature of the job
Glasner: “I have a call in the evening with my wife and children. My daughter tells me about school, about riding a horse, going to track and field… and then football is far away. It gives you a different perspective on things. I try to take time. It can be in the gym or maybe going to a driving range playing golf. It’s about getting the mind free. It’s important to stay calm and not get influenced by all the emotions.
“We had six weeks off in the summer and I spoke to my sporting director (Dougie Freedman) every day, sometimes two or three times. It’s always a 24-7 job. ‘What can I do with my staff, more input, more tactics, less tactics, more freedom and creativity, structure?’ Defensively we are doing well. ‘Do we need more meetings? Less meetings? Individual meetings?’.”
Analysis: Glasner is emotional on the touchline, often animatedly turning to his coaching staff, but tends to be calmer in the dressing room. These words paint a picture of someone who acknowledges the reality of his job is one that requires full dedication and commitment, possibly to the detriment of his personal life. Football dominates. The role consumes him.
He is away from his family, in a different country with relatively fleeting daily contact via Zoom calls, and by his own admission is feeling the pressure of a winless run. That must be a heavy burden.
Glasner joined Palace earlier this year, but his family remain in Austria (Sebastian Frej/MB Media/Getty Images)
Did you feel the club was left behind in the transfer window?
“We could have done better in the transfer window. With four signings on deadline day, it’s not how you wished a transfer window would work. No one says: ‘Yes, we will wait until deadline day and then sign four players two weeks after the Premier League has started and without (the signings having) any pre-season’.
“This is clearly what we should have done better. But, in the end, it was the club’s decision.”
Analysis: This is not the first time he has decided to direct criticism at the club’s transfer strategy this summer. While some might interpret this as him deflecting from perceived tactical failings or selection issues — things he can control — that is not how it comes across. He is clearly frustrated he did not have as full a squad as possible available to him with which to conduct pre-season.
Having players fit and sufficiently sharp to start the campaign is a key part of his approach and he does not feel that was something the summer allowed to happen. That so many of his players went deep into major international tournaments was another factor, disrupting club preparations.
Are there unrealistic expectations at Palace after the team’s strong finish last season?
Glasner: “We all expected a lot, but sometimes you have to be realistic even if you don’t want to be. We have big goals and we want to achieve a lot. We were 10th last season. Ninth was West Ham who had a £140million ($181.5m) net spend. Eighth was Manchester United and seventh was Newcastle United. Fulham finished 12th and invested £50m net, and Brighton invested £180m. Those are the clubs surrounding us in the table and we saved £20m net.
“We all expected a lot from this season and it hurts. Maybe we lost a little bit of realism and now it’s about finding the right setup for us between realism and also pushing to the edge of what we can achieve. It is clear what we achieved now is not what we expected so now we are below realism.”
Analysis: This was a return to the transfer theme and, while the numbers are there to be quibbled with, Glasner’s broad point is still valid in terms of the vast investment of teams who finished immediately around Palace in last season’s table. The south London club operate very much within their means, both in terms of transfer fees and wages.
His comments do not appear to be a criticism of the smaller squad that he has to work with — he has previously appeared to support, and even advocate for, operating with a smaller group. But there is an underlying unhappiness at how the summer window panned out.
The late addition of bodies in the window, in particular, clearly remains a gripe.
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Is Jean-Philippe Mateta suffering a post-Olympics hangover?
Glasner: “He will start against Tottenham. Last year was his highest scoring season for Palace ever by far, by far. Then you’re expecting the next record, but it’s not so easy.
“I read an interview from Phil Foden who said, after so many games, then the Euros, he’s not in the shape he was last year. Maybe it’s the same. We have players they’re not used to having this programme, going to a tournament playing for their country up to the finals. For everyone it was the first time. It’s also one small reason maybe we don’t have the results we would like.”
Analysis: Palace had seven players whose countries were involved in finals at major tournaments in the summer. Each endured disrupted pre-season schedules as a result. An emotional and physical hangover of some kind was perhaps inevitable.
Have you made mistakes tactically, or is the team’s fragility purely a confidence issue?
Glasner: “When we talk about tactics as the problem then it’s in our attacking. I believe tactical formation is never the problem and never the solution. The goal we scored at Brentford (on the opening weekend of the season) was a cross from Tyrick Mitchell and a header from Daniel Munoz.
“I was asked last season about Ebs (Eze) and Michael (Olise) and I said it was always a team product because our wing-backs make so many runs and make space for them. Maybe at the moment we don’t have the runs to create space again. Our wing-backs don’t have this influence in our attacking game.
“It’s a connection between players. It doesn’t mean if you play with five strikers you score a lot of goals. They have to fit together. Maybe you need different kinds of players. It’s more complicated than just saying: ‘OK, we shift to a 4-4-2 formation, put four attacking players on and it will be fine, it will be easy’.”
Analysis: It is interesting to hear Glasner discuss the wing-backs and suggest they are the reason there is less creative threat given that, instinctively, it is easier to point to the sale of Olise to Bayern Munich as the root cause of all Palace’s problems. The club signed different profiles of players — Daichi Kamada, Ismaila Sarr — to fill the void. To date, they have not had the same effect, but none of those tried as the right-sided No 10 has benefited from a fully fit and on-form Munoz to open up space.
Palace have scored five league goals this season. One of those was contributed by a Brentford player. While Glasner seemed to suggest after the defeat at Forest that he was tempted to put more goalscorers on the pitch, it seems he does not intend to find a way to fit all of his attacking options into the same starting XI.
Mateta and Eze celebrate scoring against Norwich in the Carabao Cup (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
Were expectations too high of Kamada?
Glasner: “If anyone expected him to be goalscorer, that is not something he has ever been. If the expectation was that he is always stable, always running 12km a game, working for the team, creating for the team and scoring some goals then I think he is the right way. The expectations were not that he would score 15 goals. He did that once and that was his best season, and then it was five (goals). He is a guy who can score goals, but he was not bought as a striker.”
Analysis: Kamada, as a player pursued by the manager over the summer having worked with Glasner at Eintracht Frankfurt, has become a lightening rod for frustrations as he attempts to adapt to life in the Premier League. He was selected at the City Ground to provide energy from midfield, though his impact was inconsistent.
He will continue to benefit from the manager’s backing but, until he influences a game, those on the outside will retain doubts.
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What can Oliver Glasner change to revive faltering Crystal Palace?
Palace were ranked first in the Premier League for shot conversion over the last seven games of last season. This year you are 20th. Why?
Glasner: “It’s completely unfair to the team to always talk about the last seven games. Do you know how many goals Crystal Palace scored in the first eight games last season? It was seven. This year it’s five. The year before, after 25 games Palace had 22 goals (this figure was actually 21) even with Wilfried Zaha here. What happened (at the end of last season) was extraordinary: 57 goals was the highest ever. I don’t look at those last seven games because I know that’s not the truth about Crystal Palace.
“Last season we had a 1-1 draw at Nottingham, we had eight shots but we were efficient, our xG was lower than Monday’s 1-0 defeat (according to Opta, Palace’s xG in that fixture was actually 1.19 vs 0.97 this season). At Liverpool in April the xG was 3 to 0.6 (according to Opta, Palace’s xG was 1.98) and we won 1-0. This time it was closer. It’s about efficiency.
Eze and Eddie Nketiah drew another blank against Liverpool (Sebastian Frej/MB Media/Getty Images)
“Eze at Forest has two fantastic shots and one unbelievable save from Matz Sels. Last season he didn’t even think about it; he just shot and scored. We have lost this confidence (but) we have more moments in games where we can score than we had at the end of the season. We are below our expectations, but we are not far away.”
Analysis: Glasner delivered this response forcefully, but not necessarily defensively. He did not give the impression of someone trying to justify himself, but was keen to point out how unfair comparisons to last season’s run-in are.
The Austrian is a perfectionist and is intellectually curious, someone who has strong attention to detail and is studious. That came across here as he relayed multiple memorised statistics about his team’s performance.
Efficiency is one of his buzzwords, and he has been consistent in insisting that, alongside confidence, is the main reason for the slump. Improving both is his task.
(Top photo: Andrew Kearns – CameraSport via Getty Images)
