How Can Crystal Palace Possibly Keep Oliver Glasner?

After six months undefeated, Everton still feels horrid.

One performance after another and another, while it all became somehow surprisingly predictable. Fans now experience tingles of excitement, any time, any day. We are so lucky to have such a motivated group of players who are excited out of their skins to play for this Head Coach. He’s quite amazing.

Even while banking a PROFIT from transfers, even after selling two world class “10s” in 15 months, Oliver Glasner has turned Crystal Palace from mid-table to a top six team, playing pulsating football and pulling in fans across borders. This squad is our best performing ever, and in his own way, Glasner makes breaking records look easy which it’s very much not.

Are Palace seriously good?

Just now, yes, we can certainly beat anyone. You know it’s true. Anyone.

Good teams have been left beaten and baffled. Liverpool were lucky to leave conceding only two. Everton were lucky, both to still be in the game by half time, and then to win with a goal that could’ve gone anywhere. And that’s when reality struck. There are times where squad size and schedule will combine to beat us.

Only Oliver Glasner and his team of coaches have made this sustained success possible. So it’s a no-brainer. Crystal Palace absolutely must move heaven and earth to persuade Glasner that staying is his best plan.

Twelve months ago, Palace were 18th, the idea of winning the FA Cup was as remote as spotting the Lochness monster, and unbelievably clickbait was reporting Glasner faced the sack any minute. That’s when TEB urged Palace owners to slap a new contract into the Austrian’s hand there and then. Today it’s still a great idea, although it will cost much, much more and time is running out.

Supporters do try to understand

Owners have more to think about than football. Twelve months ago, Palace’s owners may never have dreamed that we would find ourselves so soon needing an expandable trophy cabinet for genuine contents, plus winning the inaugural stop on our 2025 tour of Europe, plus a club record European-best 19-match unbeaten run enabling Palace sit deservedly Top Six in the Premier League.

Yes, Glasner’s signature will be expensive, but the owners know the fans don’t want to hear they can’t afford it. Anyway, Steve, feel the value! Think of what your shares in CPFC could be worth with Glasner staying a few more years, leading Palace a long, long way.

And that’s not just a pipe dream

In today’s market, Palace may in fact be very undervalued. The Spurs’ owners reportedly refused a recent offer to sell for £3.3 BILLION. Okay, so let’s assume the Spurs figure is exaggerated, but that doesn’t explain the enormous difference. John Textor’s share sale put CPFC’s market value at less than £500 million.

Even with their state of the art stadium, are Spurs, really worth more than six times Crystal Palace? Of course not.

So, who best to close the valuation gap between Spurs and Palace? Oliver Glasner of course! This is why, for Parish and his partners, a new contract now makes so much sense. If Palace have a leader truly loved all the way by all the players and all the fans who all already buy into his reinvention of how football should be played, who knows where it can end? A Palace future with Glasner is almost too exciting to contemplate.

One way to close the valuation gap is a rising CPFC share price, and that just might bring the added benefit of helping our owners feel a tad more comfortable about the extra cost of keeping the Austrian and his colleagues at Palace.

Salaries

Glasner and his team of coaches have proved they are unquestionably the best Palace have ever had. They all deserve big pay rises.

Transfers

Palace have never yet given Glasner a summer window where he can spend more money than we get from selling players. So a big budget needs to be found for next May. If we’re to keep Glasner on board, the money available for purchases needs to be guaranteed in a way that satisfies OG.

What if Glasner won’t wait till summer to spend?

Well, the owners need to be ready for this outcome, but the Head Coach is an honourable man.  Whether he plans to leave when his contract ends in June or not, only one reason would make him demand investment this coming January – we’d have to be in a position in league or a cup where Glasner believes the players he wants will win us the outcomes we all want this season.

As that would be a win win either way, the owners need to have some big cash ready for January if needs be!

So, where will the money come from?

The current cash balance looks very small. After all, Palace typically lose money year after year. And a possible clue did pop up in the club’s summer transfer business.

A loan spot this season had to be found for Christantus Uche, because we wanted him for this season but it appears Palace couldn’t or wouldn’t pay until next June. Is that why we took Uche on an obligation to buy next summer?

Uche’s fee is reported to be £17m. The first instalment would’ve been much less, say £5m.  If the club can’t write a cheque for £5m, it might be safe to assume that cash is pretty tight.

And the elephant in the room is of course the Main Stand

This may or may not be sucking cash from the bank balance in big whacks already. For now, we just don’t know.

The club might sell future naming rights for the new Main Stand, and I’m sure Steve’s all over it. Right now, as FA Cup holders, competing in Europe and Top Six in the Premier League, the price in Steve Parish’s mind will be much higher than it would’ve been six months ago. Stand naming rights might provide a future annual income to help with the interest payments that will come due for construction.

Raising some capital

CPFC is owned by a private company, so administratively raising cash is not hard to do. An early rights issue can raise a handy amount of capital, so let’s be happy and move on. Oh, wait a minute though.

The only potential problem with a rights issue arises if one of the shareholders lacks ready cash to stump up their share of the new money. Three of the four biggest shareholders are billionaires, so no problem expected there, but Steve Parish is “only a millionaire”.

We do hope that Steve won’t be embarrassed if CPFC owners choose a rights issue as the best way to bring in new money.  Parish’s 10% shareholding is probably the absolute minimum required to hold together the 4-man “partnership” structure with Steve effectively possessing the power of veto.

In a rights issue, Steve would automatically be invited to buy 10% of the new shares, but if he fails before the agreed deadline, his 10% shareholding stands to be reduced. We do hope Steve’s not shy about a rights issue of shares, as Palace’s access to lots of cash would be restricted when it’s so sorely needed.

Meanwhile…the games go on.

October gives us all a snapshot of a life beyond anything Oliver Glasner could’ve envisaged when he moved in 20 months ago. A six-month unbeaten run just ended, but we’re winning in Europe, and Glasner gets some very clever opposing coaches to outwit.

Plus, we end the month with a knockout trip to Anfield with nothing to lose!  Before their Selhurst “moment” last month, the Reds probably would have been sure shot favorites to win the Carabao Cup match and advance to the last 8. Now Liverpool’s expected victory might prove tougher, but it seems certain to be a cracking cup tie.  We all know Glasner and the players will be going for the win!  Playing Glasnerball.

Glasnerball is clever. Evolution is even cleverer

Today, Glasnerball has become a living thing, morphing in front of our eyes in order to accommodate new players and stay steps ahead of the clubs we play. Yet some elements stay notably strong.

One of the achievements of this team is its ability to follow through on Glasner game plans. When the result produces nothing, as at Everton where schedule exhaustion was a clear factor in the second half collapse, it’s likely not the game plan that’s to blame.

An important building block in any Glasner game plan is one number that derives from two match statistics.

This number tells us how many times we have to pass the ball in order to get a shot on target (SOT).  If we score lower than the opponent, we’re well on our way to a win.

Why? Because lower means we’re either pressing well to win the ball closer to the opponent’s goal or our long forward passes are getting us there fast.  Meanwhile, if our opponent has a higher number than ours, it means our defensive model is forcing our opponent to pass the ball more often just to get close to the Palace goal, and we’re succeeding in closing the spaces for them to thread forward passes through our defence.

It’s noticeable that, when we don’t win this statistic by a decisive margin, winning the match becomes more difficult and open to question.

Under Palace’s previous two managers, it was not unknown to go a whole match without getting one SOT. With this manager, SOTs matter, hugely.  In fact, SOTs are a key factor enabling Crystal Palace to operate at such a high level of performance.  Here are the figures for our 19-game unbeaten run:

If he stays, the future evolution of Palace playing Glasnerball will obviously be in the hands of the perfect candidate – Glasner himself.  Anyone else would only be a student at best.  This is another factor for the owners to weigh as they wonder what numbers and promises will be required to make the Austrian sign on the dotted line.  The alternative, hiring and retaining a new Head Coach and staff, will be expensive.

Glasner is indebted to the players for their fitness, dedication and belief in his methods

In the life of a Palace player, the physical demands of Glasnerball are huge every day but – for several – this particular season is special like no other because of the tournaments.  Afcon in January, the World Cup in June.

This means we can be certain that every one of these players is straining to play at their best levels, stretching still further to be in their national squad, and then to be selected as their nation’s best for such important and potentially historic matches on the world stage.

For the players, these are dreams on steroids.  So the pressure of each day in the next 8 months will anyway be intense.  And then your wonderful club boss (in this case, Oliver Glasner) is there every day pushing you, challenging you, expecting you to do better than you ever have before. For Crystal Palace, this is a set-up that’s primed to win matches.

And it’s not just Glasner, it’s his team of coaches, including Paddy, the sole non-Austrian implant in the management team, a man who has bled red and blue for donkey’s years.  Glasner’s intensity even stretches to the white hot environment of the field of play, with two Glasner disciples who worked for him before, and came back smiling for more!  Both Kamada and Lacroix live and breathe Glasnerball, and they are constantly in the thick of the action conveying the preacher’s message.

For Palace players, this all-involving experience has produced the fantastic performances and results that we fans have been loving for the 20 months since Oliver Glasner became Palace Head Coach.