Glasner keen to keep his flying Eagles grounded as Crystal Palace set a FA Cup Finals date with Manchester City.
Glasner keen on ensuring that his key players are focussed on the Premier League position despite the fact they made and FA Cup Finals after 9 years.
Although it appears to be a different tale behind the scenes, Oliver Glasner is not the type of manager who makes audacious predictions. A video of the Austrian’s post-match team talk, in which he described his expectations of his players during a training camp in Marbella in March, was made public on social media a few hours after Crystal Palace’s thrilling 3-0 victory over Aston Villa in the FA Cup semi-finals.
“I told you guys, this is because I know you guys and I know your talent, especially I know your character, that we can achieve outstanding things this year,” Glasner said. “I felt it, guys, that we are able to achieve, to write history for Crystal Palace. We fully deserve a place in the final, but it’s not the final.”
It would be simple for Palace fans to lose their cool following such a comprehensive performance against Villa. However, no one in south London will be taking anything for granted since they fell to Manchester United in devastating way in their two prior finals, in 1990 and 2016.
The 21-year-old Wharton, who joined Palace from Blackburn just last January and is already a full England international, was one of the players Glasner was most proud of.
“It’s a great group to manage, to coach,” he says. “It’s all about recruitment and talent and character. Then we can build a group.”
However, Glasner should also be commended for his insistence that Palace recruit Daichi Kamada and Maxence Lacroix, the defensive rock, in the summer. Lacroix was the manager of Wolfsburg in Germany. The Japan midfielder, who had initially struggled for form, was a standout of Glasner’s Eintracht team before joining Palace following a disastrous season at Lazio. However, following a solid performance against Arsenal in midweek, he was unexpectedly selected with Wharton in centre midfield for the semi-final. With a mature performance, he demonstrated why he is the club’s highest paid player.
“The job is not done,” says Wharton. “[Beating Villa] was massive for us as a team. We can see. If we stick to the plan, if everyone’s on it, we can beat any team that we come up against. We’ve just got to keep level-headed because there is still so much to play for.”