Oliver Glasner: Completely unfair to expect Crystal Palace to repeat ‘extraordinary’ end to last season

Oliver Glasner says it is completely unfair to expect Crystal Palace to repeat last season’s “extraordinary” ending.

The Eagles won six of their last seven games of last season, scoring 21 goals and beating Liverpool, Manchester United and Aston Villa to secure a top-10 Premier League finish.

Palace are winless in their first eight games of this season and have picked up just three points.

Glasner’s side are also the lowest scorers in the division – netting five goals from their opening eight fixtures.

The Austrian boss said: “It’s completely unfair to the team and to Crystal Palace to always talk about these last seven games.

“There is a stat. Do you know how many goals Crystal Palace scored last season in the first eight games? Seven. This year, it’s five. 

“Michael Olise and Jordan Ayew were here. Some people say: ‘You shouldn’t have sold them,’ but they were here. 

“The year before [the 2022-23 season], after 25 games, Crystal Palace had scored 22 goals – there was even a Wilfried Zaha here. 

“It’s not that Crystal Palace was the goalscoring machine in the Premier League – it has never been. 

“Yes, we did it, but what happened in the last seven or eight games of last season was extraordinary for Crystal Palace.”

The South Londoners are 18th in the Premier League and have matched their points tally at this stage of the season from 2017 when they lost their first seven matches under Frank de Boer and Roy Hodgson.

He continued “The amount of goals at the end of the season, 57, was the highest ever.

“Now expecting the highest ever is not fair on the players or Crystal Palace.

“We’re not happy with just scoring five. I look at the stats. When we had the 1-1 draw at Nottingham Forest in the great end of last season, we had just eight finishes. But we were efficient.

“It’s about efficiency. Let’s take Eberechi Eze as an example. He had two fantastic finishes [against Forest]. One was an unbelievable save by Sels. The other finish inside the box, and he hits the goalkeeper.

“At the end of last season, he didn’t even think about it. He just shoots and he scores. 

“I was asked very often: ‘What did you do with JP Mateta?’

“I hope you remember my answer. I said: ‘We did nothing. It’s confidence – now he has confidence. He gets into these situations and he scores the goals.’ 

“Now, because we don’t have the results and some different reasons, we lost our confidence.

“We have more moments in games where we can score than the end of last season. 

“We always have to think about the whole picture. The whole picture doesn’t concern me that much because I don’t always look at the last seven games. 

“It’s not the truth about Crystal Palace. Yes, we are below our expectations – definitely. But we’re not so far away and this is what we have to get back.”

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