Palace Manager Glasner furious at fixture schedule ahead of the club’s FA Cup semifinal against Aston Villa.
Palace Manager Glasner has complained that the buildup to Crystal Palace’s FA Cup semi-final against Aston Villa is unfair.
The Premier League turned down a request from the London club to have both sides play on the same night in midweek.
On Tuesday night, Villa played at Manchester City, and the following day, Palace will visit the Emirates Stadium.
According to reports, the league turned down Palace’s request because of television regulations and the fact that Arsenal couldn’t play on Tuesday because their last matchup was against Ipswich on Sunday.
The Palace boss still plans to field a strong team on Wednesday, with Eddie Nketiah expected to make a rare start against his old team, despite Glasner’s disappointment with the choice.
Glasner said: “Yes, we wanted it, but sometimes you are shouting against the wind and nobody hears you. I don’t want to complain about fixtures but I think it’s not the best choice from the Premier League.
“Villa play tonight and we play tomorrow – fair would be if both teams were playing on the same day, on Tuesday or on Wednesday. At this stage of the season it can influence if you have two or three days to rest. But we have to accept it and I’m pretty sure we will be top fit on Saturday.”
After giving up 10 goals in their last two games, Palace steadied the ship in Saturday’s goalless draw against Bournemouth.
Glasner will need to make adjustments against Arsenal due to Chris Richards’ one-game suspension following his red card, but he does not want to throw off his team’s rhythm with Villa approaching.
“My approach is clear: nothing changes tomorrow,” he said. “It’s the players’ approach, and I spoke to them. If someone believes they have to save their energy for Saturday then it would be quite easy, but they said ‘no’ and want to show our style, identity and who we are by giving our best. For me you can’t say tomorrow is not important.
“We could put out the under-21s so we can train for the Villa game. But that is not what we want.”
Glasner said he had learned from experience: “When I was a younger manager in Austria I played a midweek cup tie against a non-league team and we had a derby at the weekend. I changed 11 players for the cup game but we were awful but everything went how we planned and we went through to the next round and every player was fit for the derby. But we went on to lose the derby 2-0 and I said I would never do it again.”