A Chat With Steve Parish – And Don’t Mention The Red Ferrari!

Imagine: you won the contest to be the fan guest at the club Christmas party featuring 10 minutes alone with Steve Parish. What would you say to him? Well, here’s a list of things to think about as you contemplate your prize – and, whatever you do, don’t even think of mentioning the red Ferrari.

As the greatest year in Crystal Palace history draws to a close, it’s time to celebrate with Steve just a little – and maybe to ask some questions that might just have interesting answers.

Do you love the new Bouncebackability?

Let’s go easy on Steve to start with.  Twenty years on, Iain Dowie’s made-up word gets a whole new meaning under Oliver Glasner.  We all know losing usually teaches better than winning.  With bouncebackability Dowie was right, losing is less important than the reaction.

Palace reactions to losing this year have consistently been both powerful and positive.  It’s a curiosity that, in an outrageously successful 2025 under Glasner, Palace defeats do seem to come in clusters – and look at the reaction each time!

There were the two successive home defeats to Brentford and Everton.  Reaction:  Zero home league defeats in 9 months since.

Then, 10 goals conceded in 100 minutes in April. Reaction:  It took 16 matches to concede the next ten!

October saw us lose 3 times in 4 games, despite often very good performances. Reaction:  We won all of the next 3.  Key lesson:  Convert more chances into goals.  Just one extra goal each game in October would by now have extended our unbeaten run to 27, Palace would be the talk of European football, and we’d all be even more excited than many of us already are.

This team can really play that well, week in, week out.  If they’re not exhausted.

How do you beat Glasnerball?

Glasner has given us all a treat we’ve never enjoyed at Palace before.  We get to watch in real time as brilliant coaches are baffled time and time again by the pulverizing football this Palace team can play.  As our journey with Glasner continues, we watch how some opponents try to outwit Glasnerball.  And then there are those who, for their own reasons, don’t even try.

For the Carabao Cup at Liverpool, Arne Slot made a choice.  Full-on battle?  Liverpool first team against Palace first team?  Er, no.

Instead, Slot decided not to risk his stars bringing their string of defeats to five, not with prospects of stretching to six, seven or eight with Villa, Real Madrid and City on the instant horizon.  On the night, Slot didn’t even risk his top players on the bench.  Better to focus on the Premier League and, perhaps important too, not worry too much about losing AGAIN to Oliver Glasner.

In all honesty, before a ball was even kicked at Anfield, the outcome of this Cup tie was decided by the team sheets. After all, Palace fielded several players who already banked career achievements that those starry eyed kids in red can currently only dream about.  So Palace absolutely had to knock Liverpool out, and we deservedly did.

Slot openly avoided trying to beat Glasnerball.  He’s not the only one who struggles when trying to beat the Austrian.

EXAM: SUCCESS BEATING OLIVER GLASNER

Eligibility:  Two matches against Glasner (minimum) & still a Premier League Manager

Franck, T 100%

Arteta, M 77%

Moyes, D 66%

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Guardiola, P 58%

Nuno, ES 55%

Iraola, A 50%

Howe, E 44%

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Slot, A 33%

Maresca, E 33%

Silva, M 33%

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Hurzeler, F 11%,

Emery, U 5%

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Can Glasnerball go faster, harder?

During matches, Palace fans can draw comfort from knowing the players are constantly thinking the Glasner way: Go for the win.  And, if you can’t win, don’t lose.

Oliver Glasner built the current version of Glasnerball just for these players in this team.  And it’s much more than just a structure or a way of play.  Glasnerball is a living thing, evolving as it meets and beats challenges.

Proof: Almost like Glasner using an accelerator pedal, even the urgency of our play and the intensity of the press can be fine-tuned according to the resources available.

For example, with Nketiah missing against AZ Alkmaar, it was clear that attacking threat from the bench would be limited so this match had to be won by first choice players, fast.  Glasner’s deeply analytical approach enabled the Head Coach to devise a win-win solution.  The points were pretty much in the bag by halftime.  And key players enjoyed valuable minutes of rest.

Would Glasnerball work for a giant club?

Because Oliver Glasner is currently one of the top coaches in European football, it’s inevitable that one or more giant clubs will soon want him to be their next Head Coach.

With a giant club, the coach who can only show success with a smaller club will instantly be very much on the public rack.  Amorim at Man United, for instance, has had a miserable first year.  As the Portuguese soon discovered, a couple of quick defeats only increase the weight of pressure.

As the current version of Glasnerball works for a team that’s brilliant at counter attacking, would it work as well for a giant club expecting to dominate possession most games?  Could Glasnerball work with 60 per cent or more possession every match?  Now there’s a challenge that might draw him in ….. or might it push him to stay in SE 25 after all?  Would it be a simple tweak of Glasnerball?  A full-scale overhaul? Or start again?  Only he knows.

Glasner is of course well capable of making another completely new start, he’s done it before, and he’s only 51.  But the two years invested so far at Palace have been remarkably intense and remarkably successful, so it might just be too hard to walk away from.

How happy would Glasner be with a giant club?

In truth, Glasner may not find real happiness at a giant club.  Let’s face it, the qualities he emphasises when he speaks won’t necessarily be an easy fit in a big stadium.  Humility, honesty, respect for opponents….. either it’s BS for the fans or it’s what I believe it to be…..sincerely the real man that Oliver Glasner is.

Can you really imagine Man U fans (for example) happy to have a humble man running their team?  For example, here’s a Glasner quote that might cause glazed looks for some giant club fans:

“It’s always important to stay yourself, to stay humble and stick to our values.”

Will they know what he’s talking about?

And, when he looks in the eyes of giant club fans, Glasner might discover the true level of fans’ passion at a giant club leaves him cold.  Every time Palace fans really show their passion, Glasner sees it – and he looks like he loves it. Two recent Glasner quotes make the point.

“The values we have inside the team, we have with our fans, so that’s why we are one big Crystal Palace group, and I think that’s why we are that successful.”

“The fans are part of our team. We can rely on them, they can rely on the team, to always give 100 per cent. We can count on them, they can count on us. We trust them, they trust us. We respect them. They respect us, and now we are one big together.”

Why would Glasner and his assistants go elsewhere, especially when his superb two years with Palace give him and his hand-picked specialists a chance to display a valuable new quality not yet seen in their career together – making a lasting positive difference to a club?

Why would Glasner want to stay?

Unlocking the potential of Crystal Palace has taken decades. Now we alighted on a clever Head Coach who seems to love the unique atmosphere of Selhurst, devising strategies ideally suited to some hugely talented players, and the whole show is run not by some faceless billionaire, but by a Palace fan!

It may be good or bad that, after two years, Glasner knows exactly who and what he’s dealing with.  Crystal Palace are now his team.  Solid foundations are already in place.

Importantly, Glasner is a cup fighter too.  This only adds to his value.  Not every head coach these days fancies a distraction from focus on the Premier League.

Last month, we highlighted the need for Palace at last to provide a transfer budget that’s realistic for what the Head Coach is trying to achieve.  That same week, Tottenham showed us why by creating a £100m transfer kitty for Thomas Frank and telling him there’s more where that came from.

Thankfully, though, money is not the only deciding factor. Ask Steve Parish:

“I think for Oliver it’s about the conditions being right…. it’s about everything being in a way that he enjoys his work and he finds the conditions favourable to achieve…..Oliver wants to win things.  If we can align those interests then hopefully we can make something happen.”

Glasner’s achievements have already made him so central to life at the Palace.  We all adore him.  Don’t we?  Voices of dissent don’t seem to have much to say.  Continuing on to even more success from here, with Crystal Palace, might just satisfy Glasner. Might.

Can Glasner be persuaded to extend his contract?

It would be so positive for all concerned!  Taking the nucleus of this squad into the future.  The team Glasner built.   Succeeding the way Glasner designed. As Glasner himself says:

“The foundation of our success is our team spirit  .With the exception of Eze, the 15 players with the most playing time have stayed.  With us, everyone knows what they have to do.”

At Palace, Glasner seems to have considerable freedom and must enjoy watching as vindication of all his efforts is being seen at higher levels all over the country and now in Europe.  In the past few weeks, I can’t be the only one who’s heard non-Palace football fans talking about our team with new-found admiration.

It’s an added bonus of this man that, at Crystal Palace, Glasner doesn’t just think “team” and close his eyes to everything off the field, which he would be quite entitled to do.

Instead, Glasner really runs towards the big issues that will change this club’s future.  The squad, the stand, the media facilities, everything.  Glasner has truly embraced Crystal Palace.  It’s time for Crystal Palace to cement that embrace.

What will it cost if we lose Glasner?

If Glasner leaves, of course, it’s not just a new coaching team.  Guehi, Kamada and Lerma are all out of contract in the summer.  Without Glasner, we’re likely to be forced to replace at least these three first team players, who are currently valued jointly by Transfermarkt at over £60m.

Unless we raise cash on a player or two in the next two transfer windows, sales won’t bring in a penny and replacing up to three such important players will itself need a new transfer budget beyond anything seen before.   However there is, as Steve Parish says, “a limit to how many stars you can let leave before you break the fabric of the team“.

If Glasner does not commit to staying, it only raises the expectation that one or more of our biggest stars might just leave too.  And where will we be then?  With a stand to pay for too.  It hardly bears thinking about.

Bottom line: we can’t stand still, or even pause for breath.  The Premier League is a rat race.  Even the enemy sees it clearly:  “Everything about the Premier League every year becomes more difficult,” says Brighton chairman Tony Bloom.  “We have to always look to improve and innovate because if you stand still, our competitors are fiercely competitive.  They are looking to overtake one another and get stronger all the time.  We have to do likewise and ideally we are going ahead even faster than the other teams.”

Hope not.

Must our players climb mountains every game?

As the game clock ticks to 70 minutes and beyond, it’s now easy to spot several Palace players looking and playing exhausted.

Glasnerball’s pace is relentless, a small squad looks increasingly stretched, and Afcon will remove Sarr and Uche from our picture for several weeks from mid-December.

But there is an upside. In the 7 weeks from now to year-end, Palace are poised to give their away game plenty of practice.  Coming off the current international break, 5 of the next 6 matches will be away from Selhurst.

Supporting Palace away brings special feelings in any case.  Results this calendar year suggest that this Palace team and the travelling fans are loving playing away more than ever before.

During the 2025 calendar year, Glasner has brought us thoroughly enjoyable performances and unbelievable results AWAY (!) from Selhurst in all competitions:

 Played 23

 Won 13

 Drawn 6

 Lost 4

 Scored 38

 Conceded 21

 Points 45

 Average Points per Match: 1.95

The extreme intensity of this period of the season cannot be overlooked.  Our international players are now in an unprecedented run of playing every third or fourth day for at least 16 weeks in a row.  As Glasner says, “I know our players will learn through experiencing it, like all of us.”

Is Crystal Palace most improved team in the Premier League?

Yes! Measuring points compared to the same stage last year, Crystal Palace are the most improved team in the Premier League!