Glasner arrives at the Glaziers: Palace’s new manager has given his first interview since his appointment at Selhurst Park
The transition, from Selhurst Park old boy (in all senses) to continental modern game thinker, was smoother than anyone had expected under the circumstances.
But in his first interview since being appointed successor to Roy Hodgson as manager at Crystal Palace, Oliver Glasner has revealed that he had been in discussions about taking the job last autumn. He’d even gone along to watch one of Palace’s games earlier this season. It’s just that when the moment came, it was all about three months sooner than was planned.
The 49-year-old from Salzburg – the Sound of Music city – who won the Europa League with Eintracht Frankfurt, has been out of work since summer 2023. By last month, talks with Palace chairman Steve Parish and Dougie Freedman, the director of football, were well advanced, and Glasner says he liked what he’d heard.
He was keen to get started. Even before Monday’s announcement that Hodgson was “stepping aside”, Glasner had scouted Tottenham’s weekend game, and he was in the stands at Goodison on Monday to witness the battling 1-1 draw.
His backroom staff has been announced – Michael Angerschmid, Ronald Brunmayr, Emanuel Pogatetz and Michael Berktold – while Paddy McCarthy stays as an assistant coach alongside Dean Kiely as goalkeeper coach. Ray Lewington, Hodgson’s stalwart lieutenant, has hung up his shorts…
The interview was conducted by Palace TV, so there were no curveball questions, as to be expected. But it was a wide-ranging introduction to a managerial appointment which everyone at Selhurst must be fervently hoping proves to be longer lasting, and more productive, than the brief stays by the likes of Patrick Vieira, Frank de Boer, or, to be fair, the majority of those in temporary charge of first-team performances for more than a decade.
Glasner goes into this weekend’s Premier League game with Burnley – another “relegation six-pointer” – apparently up to speed with his own squad’s strengths and weaknesses.
“This season, the circumstances have been a little bit difficult, with many injured players and key players injured for many games, but I see a team with great characters,” he said.
“When I saw the game at Everton, there was really good spirit in the team, always supporting each other. I saw the basics, where we can build up the philosophy and where we can build up what we want to do, how we want to play.
Modern game thinker: Oliver Glasner comes with a solid reputation from the Bundesliga
“I could see this in every single game, also in the losses, because there you can see a lot of the character of a team, and I saw and I’m convinced that they are great characters and great players.
“Now, of course, when you don’t win many games, and this is the same in every club, they have a lack of confidence. This is maybe the first thing: we want to give them their confidence back so that they show their abilities.
“I’ve been here once in autumn watching a game, and I was really excited about the atmosphere, but it is one sitting in the stand, and another is being close to the sidelines, so it will be emotionally different.
“I think that’s also one reason why I’m a manager, a coach: to feel these emotions here, to feel this atmosphere. This is something you cannot buy. You have to live it, and this is why I really like being a manager.
“For me it’s important that now we get to know each other, that we create a working attitude, a way of playing, a way to get the best out of any player. These are the short-term goals, of course: to get as many points as we can, to win as many games as we can.
“For me, this is very important: that we play the same way here at Selhurst Park and in the away games, so that we always trust in us, we always trust in our teammates, and we always trust in what we do. This will start with the first practice.
“We’re starting. We’re all looking forward to it. I’m really convinced that we’ll reach our goal, that we can improve as a team, that we can improve individually – and then that we’ll enjoy our time together.”
‘Nobody went on the pitch when he was a young kid to defend!’
Glasner said that there’s plenty that excites him about the Palace job: “Selhurst Park, the fans, the fantastic squad we have, the talks I’ve had with the chairman, the sporting director and the owners about the vision of the club. I think it’s a very interesting project where we can have a shared vision and, now, it starts.
“It’s our responsibility to fill this vision with life, and we will work hard to be successful.
“It’s the first time in my career I’ve started as a manager during a season. It’s a different situation, but it is how it is, and for me, it’s important to do the best out of it.
“Talks started already in the autumn, but the plan would have been to start in the summer.
“It came faster than we all thought, but it doesn’t change many things. We have three training sessions and then the first game against Burnley, and we will prepare the team as well as it’s possible, and then we go for three points here at Selhurst Park.”
And he laid out his footballing philosophy: “It’s also important for me always to have the same important things: honesty, passion for football, a good spirit in the whole team – not just the players, the staff – and to create a great team spirit.
“Then, I think we can talk about football, the basics are always good characters, good team spirit and a good environment for all of us.
“My philosophy is very easy: it’s scoring goals because that’s why, as I tell the players very often, we all started playing football. Nobody went on the pitch when he was a young kid to defend!” Glasner, of course, spent much of his own playing career in the Austrian Bundesliga as a defender.
“Everybody wants to have the ball and wants to score a goal and then celebrate together with his friends, so this is why we all started playing football.
“I think we never should forget this because this is what the fans want to see: that we fight together and we play together to score a goal. This is the headline over the football philosophy.
“Then, of course, it’s how we defend: sometimes it’s a high press, sometimes it’s a low block – but it’s all about how we can score goals.”
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This is not a comment on the foregoing article. It is a plea, which I hope Inside Croydon will support. Please persuade TFL to reintroduce bus maps. They used to provide one for each quarter of London, and a fifth for the centre. Now one has to depend on a mobile ‘phone = not easy for old people, and it doesn’t show the whole area. The Mayor is naming parts of the Overground to make it easier to move around. But far more people use buses, and they all want to explore bits of the capital new to them.
A bit off topic, John, but reckon you meant to comment on the bus route changes. We’ll let you off this time.
Wholeheartedly agree, John.
When putting these reports together, with the isolated bus route maps, we had a discussion around the water cooler here in iC Towers about the absence of any “connectivity” in TfL’s pdfs. Their “spider maps” of the town centre actually create confusion, because they even *omit* existing routes.
TfL still do card Tube maps (for tourists?). Why not bus maps?
Now, who has a map of the old green bus routes…?