In a season so far characterised by a packed fixture schedule, lack of squad depth, and missed chances, Crystal Palace have come off the back of their incredible FA Cup victory with a slightly frustrating, yet optimistic, first half of their 2025/26 campaign.
Oliver Glasner has been instrumental to the Eagles’ success, managing to balance European games, a Carabao Cup run, and Premier League fixtures.
Now, with questions about the manager’s future in the balance, we will have to see how far Glasner can take Palace, or whether his talents will be picked up elsewhere.
How Glasner Has Managed Crystal Palace
A recent poor run of form has led to Palace being placed below mid-table in the Premier League, with trends in betting online in the UK reflecting faltering confidence in their performance further in the campaign.
If you want the odds of their end-of-season position, then a bet calculator can help you work out potential returns.
Palace have also struggled in the Europa Conference League, and will now have to compete in a two-legged play-off game to qualify for the knockouts.
A large factor for this is their lack of squad depth, with Glasner’s unwillingness to heavily rotate the starting XI leading to fatigue impacting their form.
However, the Austrian’s 3-4-2-1 formation has also been instrumental in Palace’s fantastic run of games in 2025, which saw them lift the first trophy in their history and go a record 19 games undefeated.
Crystal Palace is a defensively strong team that likes to sit back and go for teams on the counterattack.
This is due in a large part to the centre-back trio of Maxence Lacroix, Marc Guehi, and Chris Richards, who allow right-wing back Daniel Munoz to run down the pitch and create chances for Mateta.
Unfortunately, another big problem for Palace this season has been their inconsistency in front of goal.
They currently have a far larger XG (Expected goals) than the amount they have scored, meaning they have been very wasteful with clear-cut chances.
Perhaps the recent signing of Brennan Johnson will give Palace the extra depth and goal-scoring ability they need to push on for the rest of the season.
After all, Johnson was the top goalscorer for Tottenham Hotspur last season, scoring the winning goal in the Europa League final against Manchester United.
Rumours About Oliver Glasner’s Future
Crystal Palace will, of course, be more than keen to keep Glasner in the dugout.
His name has been appearing on many top teams’ managerial shortlists, however, and the Eagles may need to start looking at potential backups.
After the recent sacking of Ruben Amorin, there have been rumours of Manchester United looking to appoint the Austrian at the end of the season.
This makes sense, as both managers have adopted a three-at-the-back formation, to varying degrees of success.
Palace have apparently been eyeing up Getafe manager, José Bordalás, as a potential replacement if Glasner were to leave.
Very defensively minded, this appointment would keep Palace solid at the back, but may not answer their lack of goalscoring.
