This Saturday will see Oliver Glasner open his account for Crystal Palace, here’s three things we want to see.
After Roy Hodgson stepped down on Monday, all attention switched immediately to Saturday with Crystal Palace facing Burnley which is a huge opportunity for Oliver Glasner to start with a win.
In terms of Glasner’s beginning at Palace, he couldn’t ask for an easier start on paper with Burnley only better than one side in the league.
But this weekend for many represents a new era beginning at Selhurst Park and expectations will be high, to see what the Europa League winner can do with this Palace side.
Here are five things we’ll be watching closely for this weekend during Palace’s game…
Some indication of exciting football
So this isn’t going to be perfect overnight as he’s only getting four days to work with his team prior to this game, but he needs to excite the crowd.
Too often this season, fans have been left bored with the football leaving far too much to be desired, but Glasner will change this with pressing, counter-attacking football which we hope to see the first indications of this weekend.
We don’t expect to be pressing perfectly or tearing Burnley apart however some solid signs of how he plans on setting Palace up would be nice.
Correct selection decisions
While style isn’t something which Glasner will be able to perfectly change overnight, something he can his team selection.
With a full working week pretty much to decide, we want to see Glasner making the right decisions from the bat in terms of team choice.
One player to watch is Matheus Franca who could be perfect in place of Odsonne Edouard in the left inverted winger slot given it’ll allow the talented Brazilian to be more central where he thrives.
Three points are a necessity for Palace
Easier said than done. But Crystal Palace and Oliver Glasner cannot afford to miss out on three points this weekend against the league’s 19th-placed side.
While we do not doubt that Glasner will in the long run get Palace to play excellent football and be successful, he’s been brought in to have an immediate impact.
So if Palace don’t win this weekend it will take all the momentum generated away from Glasner and he could very quickly find himself in a relegation dogfight against the likes of Sean Dyche.
So a win is the most important thing, above performance and everything. Just win and begin to pull away from relegation once more.
