After Crystal Palace’s 2-1 defeat away at Sunderland, manager Oliver Glasner delivered a scathing post-match interview accusing the Palace board of “abandoning” his team. How much validity is there to that statement?
As far as weeks go, the last seven days have been among the worst in Crystal Palace’s recent memory.
It began with a humiliating FA Cup exit to non-league Macclesfield. It ended with a remarkable and scathing post-match interview from manager Oliver Glasner, after a 2-1 defeat at Sunderland had consigned Palace to a 10th consecutive game without a win.
In between those two flashpoints were two bombshell revelations: the impending sale of club captain Marc Guéhi to Manchester City just 24 hours before the Sunderland fixture, and Glasner’s announcement himself that he would leave the club in the summer when his contract expires, just eight months after guiding Palace to the first major trophy in their history.
While Glasner appears to have been given a stay of execution despite his outburst, his time at the club is clearly nearing its end. Whether he does indeed last until the summer is very much up in the air. His post-match criticism was pointed, personal, and centred on what he views as a failure to build on last season’s success.
“I’ve seen a team that is leaving their heart on the pitch,” he told BBC Match of the Day following his side’s defeat at Sunderland. “But you’ve seen… we couldn’t make a sub, we have no one on the bench. I feel that we’re being abandoned completely.
“I can’t blame any player. They did everything they could. We’ve been playing with 12 to 13 players for weeks now. I feel no support. The worst thing is selling our captain one day before playing a Premier League game.”
The imminent sale of Guéhi appears to have been the last straw. Glasner’s frustration had been simmering since the end of last season, when he urged Palace not to become “one-hit wonders” after their FA Cup triumph.
But instead of spending the summer consolidating and strengthening a squad that had won its first major trophy and qualified for Europe, the summer transfer window was more notable for its departures rather than its arrivals, with star player Eberechi Eze joining Arsenal.
They agreed a fee to sell Guéhi to Liverpool at the end of the summer window as well, but Glasner reportedly put his foot down and the club pulled the plug on the deal, ultimately accepting a much smaller fee from City just over four months later with their captain’s deal also running out at the end of the season.
Their incomings, by contrast, were modest. Yeremy Pino (£26m), Jaydee Canvot (£17.5m), Borna Sosa (£3m), Khyan Frazer-Williams (free), and goalkeepers Walter Benítez and Harry Lee (both free) joined the club. Christantus Uche also arrived on loan from Getafe.
Pino has undoubtedly made an impact, but beyond him the output from Palace’s summer signings has been insignificant. The remaining summer signings have made just two Premier League starts between them and played a combined 426 league minutes. It’s not as if they’ve particularly carried a load in other competitions, either, making a combined 20 starts between them across all competitions.
For a club preparing to balance domestic football with European football in the form of the UEFA Conference League, that lack of depth has been costly.
January has brought one significant addition in Brennan Johnson (£35m), but that alone hardly compensates for the losses of Eze and Guéhi.
Glasner’s sense that his squad has been weakened rather than reinforced is difficult to argue with.
Whether it was genuinely because he didn’t feel any of his substitutes were ready to enter the fray against Sunderland, or if it was a decision to try and make a point to the board, Glasner did not make a single substitution against the Black Cats last weekend.
That makes Crystal Palace the only side to play an entire game without making a single sub across the last two Premier League seasons, with West Ham against Spurs back in April 2024 the last time a team didn’t make a change from the bench.
A glance at his substitutes bench might reveal why. Palace’s subs on Saturday had made just three Premier League starts between them; it is any wonder he didn’t feel capable of turning to them?
In fact, Palace account for three of the five least experienced benches named by any team this season, and all have been this month.
Sunderland (0 previous PL starts on the bench vs West Ham) are also a bit of an exception here as that was the first game of the season and they had not been in the Premier League since 2016-17.
For context, the least experienced bench Glasner named in the 2024-25 season (in terms of starts, at least) had 364 Premier League starts between them. That came in a 1-1 draw away at champions Liverpool on the final day of last season.
Through injuries and absences, what is very clear is that Glasner feels like he hasn’t got the depth in his squad to turn to. Further indication for that feeling is that Palace have had a combined 125 unused substitutes across his Premier League games – only Everton (126) have had more.
There’s more compelling evidence that suggests Glasner has had to rely heavily on a core group of players. He has made by far the fewest changes to his starting XI this season, at least nine fewer than anyone else (24).
What’s more, Palace have started just 19 different players in the league, a joint-low figure alongside Arsenal, Bournemouth, Brentford and Liverpool.
The physical consequences have been predictable. According to premierinjuries.com, at the time of writing, Palace have the joint-most absences in the Premier League with nine players unavailable. Given the workload placed on a small group, that injury list isn’t too surprising.
This is particularly concerning given Glasner’s demands on his players. As we revealed last week in a deep study around player fatigue, Palace’s lack of possession (43.1% – fourth lowest) means players are required to perform more off-ball pressures and runs than almost any other team in the division (second-most behind Burnley).
That physical demand is only intensified by European football, where Palace had to get through the play-off round of the Conference League just to even qualify for the league phase.
Palace finished the league phase in 10th, and have progressed to the knockout phase play-offs where they will be confident of overcoming Bosnian side Zrinjski Mostar.
Despite Glasner’s frustrations, this is a season that could still end in silverware. The Opta supercomputer still makes Palace overwhelming favourites to win the Conference League after all.
Glasner won’t change the way he plays or what he demands of his players. Nor should he; those methods have delivered unprecedented success. But if Palace are to sustain the levels they know they can reach under the German, then reinforcements are essential. January recruitment doesn’t need to be lavish, but it must deliver experience and quality players Glasner can trust.
For clubs just below the league’s elite, it’s inevitable that they will be forced to sell some of their best players. Particularly when it is a choice between cashing in on a player or letting them walk for free, as would have been the case for Guéhi in the summer. But it’s important to combine that realisation with a willingness to reinvest that money.
Without that reinvestment, it’s certainly hard to argue against Glasner’s claim of being “abandoned” by the club’s hierarchy.
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‘We’re Being Abandoned’: Is Oliver Glasner Right to Criticise Crystal Palace? Opta Analyst.
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