Crystal Palace failed to capitalise on a huge opportunity to kick on last summer.
The Eagles were arguably more attractive than ever to potential signings after taking the Premier League by storm at the end of last season, winning six and drawing one of the final seven games, doing so in swashbuckling fashion.
Additionally, the involvement of Marc Guehi, Eberechi Eze, Adam Wharton, Dean Henderson, Jefferson Lerma, Daniel Munoz and Jean-Philippe Mateta in major international finals with England, Colombia and France showed the world that joining Crystal Palace would do no harm to anybody’s hopes of playing at the highest level.
Unfortunately, Steve Parish and Dougie Freedman let Oliver Glasner down a little, waving goodbye to Michael Olise and Joachim Andersen while doing most transfer business late on, meaning the new arrivals missed out on pre-season.
Now – according to The Athletic – the Crystal Palace hierarchy agree that moves were made too late.
Crystal Palace chiefs admit Michael Olise money was not spent quickly enough
A new report states that those in the boardroom at Crystal Palace are now acknowledging the £50.8m fee received from Bayern Munich was reinvested too late in the summer.
Four of Crystal Palace’s seven summer signings arrived on transfer deadline day, with Trevoh Chalobah, Eddie Nketiah, Maxence Lacroix and Matt Turner all joining just before the window shut.
Only Daichi Kamada and Chadi Riad were signed to take part in pre-season friendlies, with Ismaila Sarr arriving in August after most of Glasner’s pre-season preparations had been and gone.
This – coupled with the aforementioned six players being involved in international tournaments – unsurprisingly led to a slow start, one Crystal Palace have failed to recover from as injuries start to set in too.
Oliver Glasner will be disappointed for the team and for himself
Glasner recently admitted he couldn’t even spend time with his family during the international break without letting Crystal Palace’s poor form dominate his thinking.
Clearly, it is getting to the Austrian, who is surely desperate to help the club, but from a more selfish viewpoint, he will feel Parish knocked his stock in the coaching world too.
It was only as recently as April that Bayern Munich wanted Glasner – with many blown away by how easy he was making Premier League football look.
Glasner perhaps then held aspirations of winning a trophy for Crystal Palace, or getting us into a European competition, but he has sadly been forced to embark on this season with one hand tied behind his back after a mismanaged summer.
