Perhaps it’s down to bitter experience but pessimism has always been in the nature of Crystal Palace supporters. Even at the end of May when Eberechi Eze scored the fifth goal past an Aston Villa side on the beach having secured Champions League qualification a few days earlier, some were already fearing the worst.
Inspired by a thrilling forward line of Eze, Michael Olise and Jean-Philippe Mateta, Palace rounded off last season by winning six of their final seven Premier League games to match their highest-ever points tally (49) and finish (10th). But after a summer of change at Selhurst Park in which Olise departed for Bayern Munich and the manager, Oliver Glasner, was also courted by the German giants following his brilliant start at the club, many worry an autumn of discontent has arrived.
Six matches into an unprecedented 12th successive season in the Premier League, Palace have still yet to record a victory and face the leaders, Liverpool, at home on Saturday in a fixture they have not won since November 2014. Perhaps more worryingly for Glasner, the new signings Daichi Kamada, Ismaïla Sarr, Maxence Lacroix and Eddie Nketiah are still very much finding their feet. The Palace manager hinted at being frustrated that “external factors” had played a role in the club’s decision to bring in Lacroix, Nketiah and Trevoh Chalobah ,on loan from Chelsea, in the final 24 hours of the transfer window but he is hoping that they will eventually make the difference.
“We could have done it maybe five weeks earlier, then we would be in the progress five weeks further. But this didn’t happen, for different reasons,” he said. “Yes, we have new signings, but Eddie Nketiah I think has played almost the same minutes in three or four weeks [at Palace] than he played all over the season with Arsenal, so we have to give him time. We give him time because we are completely convinced of his quality, and this is the same with anybody else.”
Yet while replacing Olise – who has already become a fixture in Bayern’s first team under Vincent Kompany – has proved difficult, Palace have also badly missed the experience and leadership of Joachim Andersen and Jordan Ayew after they were sold to Fulham and Leicester respectively. “This is part of evolution,” stressed Glasner. “To step up, to take responsibility and experience it. We decided to go this way and now we support all the players to take confidence from this.”
Having retained Marc Guéhi after rejecting a bid worth up to £70m from Newcastle for the England international, Palace’s defence should become more secure once Chalobah is back from injury and Lacroix – who was Glasner’s preferred choice to replace Andersen after working with the 24-year-old at Wolfsburg – settles in properly. But in Olise’s absence, and with Glasner confirming on Friday that the Brazilian midfielder Matheus França is expected to be sidelined for several weeks after picking up a groin injury in training, much of the creative onus has fallen on Eze’s shoulders. Glasner insisted that he was surprised to see the 26-year-old’s omission from the England squad this week, even though Eze has managed only one goal so far this season.
“I don’t understand why he’s not announced for England – he plays fantastic for us. The difference is that he has missed all his chances,” said Glasner. “He could have five or six goals. He’s so close and there is a knot that needs to be released.
“But he’s playing really well and has all the chances. I talk to him and he wants it. He says: ‘I have so many chances but I don’t have the number of goals I could have’. In this situation we encourage him and say: ‘Come on, stay cool.’ He has to stay relaxed, work for the team and not focus too much on these things.”
There are also concerns over Adam Wharton, with the midfielder having to manage a groin injury with painkillers in recent weeks. Glasner said last month that the number of games the 20-year-old has played since joining from Blackburn in February had taken its toll on his physical development, not to mention being thrust into the spotlight after being called up for England’s Euro 2024 squad. “There was so much in his mind and the mind always influences the body,” said the manager.
Palace have been holding discussions with the Football Association about whether Wharton will join up with the under-21s next week but Glasner would clearly prefer him to be given a rest. “He struggles and is still struggling. It is managing him as good as possible,” said the Austrian. “We know it’s not the best situation but there is not a moment where we can give him three, four or five weeks’ break.”
There was better news regarding Cheick Doucouré. The influential midfielder is in line to return after the international break having suffered another injury on his comeback from an achilles issue that ruled him out of most of last season. But Glasner knows that his favoured 3-4-2-1 formation relies heavily on Wharton’s particular skillset to pass through the lines from his deeper role. Kamada has started in central midfield alongside him in Palace’s past two matches and Glasner sprung to the defence of the Japan international, who was part of the Eintracht Frankfurt side that won the Europa League under him in 2022 and joined from Lazio on a free transfer.
“We have confidence in every single player in our squad – we can’t listen to what outsiders think,” said Glasner. “I’m worried about other things in the world. We have an election in Austria, but we have a trend where we are going more right-wing populism and this worries me because history shows us that it always ends in a dramatic way. But [I’m not worried about] the confidence of the squad.”
