Oliver Glasner on Crystal Palace’s ambitions to build on their FA Cup success – ‘We want to achieve big things and win trophies’

Hodgson took the reins steadily in his first spell as Palace manager, from 2017 to 2021, as the club aimed to maintain its Premier League status while investing in infrastructure behind the scenes. However, their return in 2023 was met with relegation fears, fan protests and a crushing 4-1 defeat against rivals Brighton & Hove Albion.

Indeed, Glasner, who was a UEFA Europa League-winning manager with Eintracht Frankfurt, arrived at a club plagued by inertia on the pitch and frustration in the stands. Within 15 months, he brought the Eagles their first-ever major trophy.

Palace’s modern history has been shaped by near misses on the biggest stage, including defeats to Manchester United in the 1990 and 2016 FA Cup finals. However, a 1-0 win over Manchester City in the FA Cup, followed by a Community Shield penalty shootout victory over Liverpool, gave the club a taste of success.

“I would say it’s an exciting journey,” Glasner told TNT Sports. “It’s been a challenging journey and that’s what I was looking for when I signed for Palace.

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“Of course, now a lot of things are closer and we know each other better. The players, all the employees, the environment, the staff, we all want the same thing. We all want to be successful, we all want to achieve big things and win trophies.”

Glasner’s time with the club wasn’t seamless. Palace lost star players Michael Olise and Eberechi Eze in successive summers, endured an eight-game winless streak at the start of the 2024-25 season, and were relegated from the Europa League to the UEFA Conference League in August for violating multi-club ownership rules.

“There are sometimes conflicts,” Glasner acknowledged. “But you have to resolve it. To resolve a conflict, you have to talk to each other, you have to know each other, you have to take a step toward the other person, and sometimes the other person has to take a step toward you, and then you can resolve the problem.”

“You always face challenges. In a group of 30 players and 40 staff, there are challenges and there are conflicts. So you need good communication. You have to know each other, how someone will react.

“For me, the first thing I do is always listen, then ask questions, then speak. In German, we say, ‘He who asks the questions, not the one who speaks, is in charge.'”

FA Cup Final

Palace defeated Millwall 3-1 in the fifth round of the FA Cup, winning the competition by conceding just one goal.

The club’s performance showed a sense of purpose, with Glasner revealing that he had printed out a photo of the FA Cup trophy from their fourth-round clash with Doncaster Rovers and displayed it in his dressing room.

“If you see something, it sticks with you. If you tell someone something, you’ll probably forget it, but if you see a picture, a photograph, etc. (you remember it),” Glasner said.

“A lot of our memories are stored in photographs. We said let’s print the FA Cup on a big piece of paper so the players know what we’re playing for. And if it helps us increase our confidence by one per cent, it’s worth it.”

“On the other hand, you could also say, ‘What if every team had a trophy in their locker room? Who would win the trophy in the end?’

After defeating Premier League rivals Fulham in the quarter-finals and Aston Villa in the semi-finals, Eze’s goal in the first half gave the club a 1-0 victory in the final after a battle of attrition against City.

“For me, the final is the same game,” Glassner continued. “Sometimes I think it’s a bigger game, a bigger environment, but it’s the same game.

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“We don’t need to change anything. We won 3-0 against Aston Villa in the semi-final and then won 3-0 against Fulham.

“Of course we lost 5-2 against City a few weeks before[the final]. We changed our set-up a little bit and thought: ‘We always know we can create chances, we always know we can score goals.’
“Every game, the message is always the same: we prepare the team, we tell them we have to believe, and we give confidence that we can win this game.

“In life, you have no chance of achieving anything unless you believe in it. You have to do it, and therefore you need the belief that you can achieve it.”

How to watch Macclesfield vs Crystal Palace

FA Cup holders Crystal Palace begin their defense of the title when they take on Macclesfield at Moss Rose on Saturday 10th January.

The game will begin at 12:15 p.m., with coverage beginning at 11:30 a.m. on TNT Sports 1.