Oliver Glasner not looking beyond Aston Villa after celebrating a year at Crystal Palace
BY ANDREW MCSTEEN
After celebrating a year in the job last week, Crystal Palace boss Oliver Glasner is currently enjoying a run of form which has seen his side draw six and win seven of their last 17 Premier League games following their opening league win of the season against Spurs in late October.
The current sequence of results came after Glasner and his side failed to win any of their opening eight top-flight fixtures – their worst-ever start to a Premier League campaign, itself coming off of an end-of-season run the previous campaign which saw the Eagles win six of their final seven games, scoring 21 goals, including the season-ending 5-0 victory against Aston Villa.
Villa return to Selhurst Park on Tuesday night for the first time since that loss, but Glasner was quick to play down any thoughts of a repeat.
“I don’t know if we can win six of seven, but I don’t really care about it,” he said in his pre-Villa media conference, referencing the run at the end of last season. “I never think about what we can do in the next eight games. I just think what’s important for Aston Villa, and then [on Saturday], we have Millwall in the FA Cup. It just makes no sense looking too far into the future.
“We had a difficult start to the season, but since we took our first win against Tottenham, in the ninth round [of Premier League game], the 17 games since – now we are in round 26 – we are fifth or something in the league table,” he added. “That’s not just a short run, it’s a mid-term run, and everything looks quite stable. The players are doing well; they are fit, playing with a great spirit within the group and then we will see.”
With that sort of form, Glasner is hopeful that he can create something special with his squad of players as they look to push up the league table and progress in the FA Cup.
“From the first day I was optimistic. I always try to be optimistic as a person,” he said. “We have such a great group of players – it changed in the summer [with new transfers], but we are always looking for great characters – and everybody is a great character, a team player and working really hard to get good results and improve our performances.
“Then, we all get the reward, and this is how we will continue working. But this is football. You always have to prove yourself every third day, every weekend, and this is what we demand from ourselves. We have two more games this week, then there will be one or two days to rest, and then we keep coming.”
PICTURE: ALAMY