Palace winning the FA Cup against City is another example that the movement to topple the ‘big clubs’ is gaining traction, although manager Glasner isn’t eyeing “big changes” for next season
A few years ago, a Crystal Palace victory over Manchester City in a Wembley final would have been hard to call. At best it would have been based on hope: “I hope Palace can win.” This time it didn’t feel that way. It felt like a 50-50 chance.
It’s not just an isolated event. Manchester City and Chelsea locked in a Champions League qualification battle with Newcastle, Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest is another example. Newcastle almost pipped Arsenal to second-place on Sunday in what was a highly realistic chance for Eddie Howe’s side – although the Toons narrowly, and perhaps disappointingly, fell short. Nottingham Forest could qualify for Europe’s elite competition on final day at Chelsea’s expense, if they can beat Enzo Maresca’s side at home.
And that’s without mentioning Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur, two of the traditional ‘top six’ languishing in the two bottom places in the league, not counting relegated sides.
For Palace, a place in the Europa League next season is a chance to further stuff an already constricted Premier League middle. The Eagles will want to convince their better players to remain at the club for a longer period of time – the likes of Eberechi Eze, Daniel Munoz, Jean-Philippe Mateta, Adam Wharton and Marc Guehi. It won’t be easy, but with Palace able to offer European football they might have a chance.
Manager Oliver Glasner, speaking to reporters ahead of the club’s penultimate league game against Wolves, feels the club needs to take it by step-by-step.
“This club got promoted in 2013,” said Glasner. “Since then, this club always progressed. You can be a one-hit wonder, but then you are gone, so it just makes no sense.
“And that’s why we said, our planning shouldn’t be, ‘now we play in Europe, so we do crazy things, and then everything collapses’. No, how is the pathway? We follow the pathway. We get a special reward – we can play in Europe – but we don’t leave our pathway.
“Now it’s going really step-by-step, but maybe winning this trophy, playing internationally, also getting this experience, maybe getting a player we couldn’t get if we don’t play international football, this can help us making the next step.”
Palace will definitely need reinforcements in the summer. The club are currently 12th in the league and will probably finish there. But next year’s target has to be competing in the top half, remaining in the Europa League if they can, and possibly joining the ongoing middle-table push to upset and dismantle the league’s upper class.
But European football comes at a cost and teams have proved in the past that they might not always be able to handle the pressure of the extra commitment.
Glasner, however, feels that there doesn’t need to be a big change to his side, despite their need for the “best possible squad”.
“I think we don’t want to plan the squad in a different way,” said Glasner. “Just looking in the morning, we’ll play one less round in the Carabao Cup. Then there will be at least eight games in the [Europa League] group stage, so that means we will have seven games more until the end of January.
“That means it’s August, September, October, November, December, January. That means more or less one game more per month, so why would we need big changes?
“We always want to get the best possible squad. This is what we wanted before. This is what we want now as well. We’ve already started to plan a few weeks and months ago to get all these things done, but there are not big changes.”
