Oliver Glasner: How far can Crystal Palace under new coach?
"The philosophy is easy; it is scoring goals." Banal platitudes served up by Premier League managers on media duty aren’t usually worthy of our attention, particularly at unveiling events, but when it comes to Oliver Glasner that disarmingly simple answer on the eve of his debut holds weight.
- Published before Palace's 3-1 win at Wolves on Saturday
Not because there isn’t much detail beneath the surface – quite the opposite – but because it captures many of the qualities that have made him an instant success at Crystal Palace: understated, humble, and adaptable.
There are aspects of his tactical approach that can come together to form a coherent playing style, namely the aggressive pressing traps in midfield that lead to those sudden super-charged attacks in the transition, but broadly speaking Glasner is a meticulous researcher and tinkerer.
Find the weak spot; find a way to score goals. That really is the philosophy – and it’s self-evidently a pretty good one.
Palace have scored 21 goals in 11 Premier League games under Glasner and have won 18 points in the process, putting them fifth in the table on form since his first match on February 24. Jean-Philippe Mateta has scored nine goals in that time and Michael Olise and Eberechi Eze have nine goal contributions between them.
It all stems from that adaptability. Glasner has put round pegs in round holes, changing the formation and turning the dial on his preferred tactics to suit what’s at his disposal, taking pains not to overload the players with information but instead give them a framework within which to work out their own solutions.
That is a longwinded way of saying he has taken the shackles off, although unlike Roy Hodgson’s brief foray into free-flowing attacking football towards the end of last season there is a structure in place that emphasises a stringent pressing game.
We saw this most prominently in those headline wins against Liverpool and Manchester United: a trigger heard and everyone pressing together onto the weakest player; a flurry of runners streaming towards the opposition goal.
The Glasner basics were laid down during warm-weather training in Marbella when a postponed fixture and the March international break gave Palace a mini-summer. They worked on a new fitness regime – essential for a complex modern pressing game – and spent long days working on the tactical minutiae, dissecting old performances and pouring over future plans.
From here, the rest of the work has been putting the right players in the right place; bending to the demands of the job rather than imposing a vision onto them.
Having Olise and Eze together has been a stroke of luck not afforded to Hodgson but there is more to it than that. Glasner is getting the best out of Mateta. He has also found a place for new signing Daniel Munoz, an aggressive right-back tailor-made for Glasner’s 3-4-3 with its flying full-backs, and has breathed new life into Nathaniel Clyne, converted into a right-sided centre-back with licence to overlap.
Adam Wharton, another January addition, has been magnificent in a two-man midfield with Jefferson Lerma, partly because Glasner’s centre-backs are expected to defend on the front-foot, squeezing space behind the central midfielders to make their job easier.
It helps that the team is very well prepared for the opposition. Glasner has the players in six days a week to look at what’s on the horizon and point out the weak spots, again showcasing that humility and adaptability.
It only has to work once - as it did for the 1-0 win at Anfield - to foster total buy-in from the players, especially considering the commitment to attack that comes with it. It isn’t just a three-pronged offensive anymore. Both wing-backs stride into the penalty area, along with at least one central midfielder and the front three.
When it works to the devastating extent as it did against Man Utd, when Tyrick Mitchell and Munoz made mincemeat of United’s full-backs and Olise and Eze tore through central midfield, you can safely say the Palace players will hang on Glasner’s every word.
And well they should. Victory against Wolves and Aston Villa in the final two matches of the season would give Crystal Palace 49 points, level with their best-ever Premier League return. Win just one of those two and Glasner will have a points-per-game average that amounts to 60+ points over a full season, enough to qualify for Europe.
Out of nowhere, that is Palace’s ambitious new target for 2024/25. Things are complicated, of course, by expected interest in both Olise and Eze, but in just three short months under Glasner we already have enough evidence to believe he would – calmly, and with the minimum of fuss – find a way to adapt to life without them.
- Published prior to Saturday's 3-1 victory at Wolves
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