The 2026/27 campaign is nearly upon us and with it should accompany a feeling of complete serenity and total enthusiasm amongst Palace fans, or so you would think.
No-one reading this will have missed the fact that the Eagles have recently won three major trophies within the space of just over a year having previously never achieved a single one in our entire history.
The FA Cup, Community Shield and UEFA Conference League were all won under the guidance of legendary manager Oliver Glasner and just writing that sentence makes me beam with pride and satisfaction. And of course, our European success capped off by a 1-0 win over Rayo Vallecano in Leipzig signified that this year we will be competing in the Europa League with the likes of Juventus, AC Milan and Marseille.
We have seen little old Palace down goliaths Manchester City and Liverpool to secure silverware at Wembley. We’ve recently gone on a historic 19 game unbeaten streak stretching from April to October in 2025, whilst following the team across the continent watching us compete in beautiful cities such as Florence, Krakow, Lublin and Larnaca before the aforementioned showpiece final in Germany.
Yet in spite of all of this, one glance at Palace X (formerly Twitter) will convince you that our inability to sign a defender no-one has ever heard of from FC Augsburg is a demonstration of how the club is in a downward spiral, as the board is seemingly unable to show any form of ambition to take us into a ‘new era‘.
Our inability to instantaneously sign a multitude of players given our new found success has provoked anger and scorn from Palace loyalists, yet, I for one simply do not care.
Is it frustrating that we have been traditionally slow in the transfer market? Yes.
Is it frustrating that our former beloved manager Glasner has decided to join newly emerging enemies Nottingham Forest (even if it is for a rather incredible sum of money)? Yes.
Yet, in the grand scheme of things, this is undeniably the greatest period in our history and is a moment in time which we must cherish and savour while it lasts, because clubs of our stature simply do not have it this good, and probably never will.
Naysayers will try and unearth some source of negativity by pointing to the fact that other clubs such as Bournemouth, Brentford and rivals Brighton are able to instantly acquire transfer targets and record consistent top half finishes, yet, I would point to our trophy cabinet as the ultimate counter action to these claims.
All of these clubs’ fanbases would kill for the tangible success we have achieved over the last year or so, and that extends to much grander footballing institutions in the country such as Everton and Newcastle who have one singular Carabao Cup success between them over the last 31 years.
Maybe some people just want to create a source of debate and interest during a time period where all we have to chew on is transfer gossip and pre-season friendlies, which I am here for as an avid viewer and occasional contributor to social media platforms myself yet some points have verged on ridiculous. A popular criticism being directed towards the club and specifically the social media team right now is the fact that new manager Pierre Sage hasn’t been heard speaking enough.
That is no exaggeration. People have decided to reject the fact that we are now somehow in a position as a club where we can attract a high-profile manager who just won the French Cup with relative minnows Lens for the first time in their history, whilst also coming second only to Champions league winning PSG in Ligue 1 having triumphed over them in the 2025/26 campaign. He even got striker Odsonne Edouard scoring on a frequent basis which many amongst the Palace faithful will tell you is quite some achievement.
Instead of concentrating on how the club was able to lure away a manager who has just achieved such heights in the previous season, certain people within the fanbase seem fixated on becoming agitated by the most minute and insignificant of details.
Personally, I would prefer a quietly spoken and seemingly humble manager who is hopefully too busy grafting on the training pitch instead of providing lengthy interview responses which would probably just involve regurgitating information we are already aware of.
In line with frustrations about transfer dealings, some seem transfixed on alluding to those that got away. Brentford recently signed an interest of ours from Lens (oddly enough), Mamadou Sangare for a club record fee reaching nearly £40 million which many Eagles used as an indicator of how our lack of ambition is holding us back.
Yet, this fails to recognise the pure class we already have in midfield with Adam Wharton and now cult hero Daichi Kamada, the former a player who we could genuinely sell in the current market for over £100 million.
Along with this, the sale of Maxence Lacroix came with frustration, yet in reality, there is nothing we can do regarding the financial muscle that Chelsea has and people are forgetting that the Frenchman is our only real big omission from the squad so far this summer.
We have been able to shrewdly replace him with two free transfers which include the arrival of Oscar Mingueza from Celta Vigo, someone who earnt his place in the Europa League team of the season last year as well as Premier League proven Japanese international Takehiro Tomiyasu who once shone at Arsenal.
They will be welcome defensive additions alongside the likes of Captain America himself Chris Richards and emerging stars such as Chadi Riad and Jaydee Canvot who both impressed massively towards the end of last season and in the case of the Moroccan Riad, into the World Cup.
There is no point in feeling frustration at those we could not get or no longer have when after all a phenomenal 12 Eagles represented their countries at the summer tournament in America (excluding Lacroix). The squad is healthy and the reintegration of Eddie Nketiah and Mattheus Franca into the fold will give us even more options including those signings that are still expected to get over the line.
Cast your mind back to the unsavoury scenes that followed our galling 5-0 loss to Arsenal in January 2024. The Holmesdale Fanatics unfurled a banner which was supported by many fans at the time with a message that read ‘wasted potential on and off the pitch, weak decisions taking us backwards‘, which although being slightly extreme given we were still 15th and five points clear of the drop zone at that point, is a sentiment I could understand and appreciate.
Since then, we have gone from strength to strength having appointed an ambitious manager following the stable Hodgson years and certainly reaped the rewards for that change of mentality, something which much maligned chairman Steve Parish has to be given the large bulk of the credit for.
He recognised that the club was going through a lull period and listened to the cries of the fans before swiftly acting by changing to a coaching staff which got the best out of our lively attacking options such as John Phillipe Mateta and Eberechi Eze.
It is a change of mentality that is still present within the club today and will carry us into the 2026/27 Europa League campaign, something which no matter the outcome is a moment in history that we should enjoy and eulogise over as the greatest point of our Palace supporting lives as opposed to lambasting the poles in the Arthur Wait (even if they are exceptionally annoying).
I hope this didn’t come across as too much of a rant towards certain sections of our great fanbase. I hope it does convey the message that the time to throw all of your support towards the team is right now because there is a strong chance that it will never be as glorious as this.
I, like you, love debating all things Palace and will call out certain problems if and when they present themselves. In truth, the positives right now certainly do outweigh the negatives in totality, and long may that continue.
