One year ago today (19th February), Crystal Palace announced the appointment of Oliver Glasner as manager.
The then-49-year-old arrived in South London following a successful career as a player, club legend and captain in Austria; and, in Germany, as a manager with VfL Wolfsburg and Eintracht Frankfurt, where he became a European champion after winning the UEFA Europa League in 2021/22.
Glasner might have announced at his first press conference “I'm no magician – I'm not David Copperfield!” – but his Palace side have certainly conjured up memories aplenty ever since.
Glasner’s reign formally began with a 3-0 win over Burnley at Selhurst Park, as Chris Richards’ first goal for the club – followed by goals from Jordan Ayew and Jean-Philippe Mateta – got him off to the perfect start.
A more challenging run of results ensued – Palace won none of their next five Premier League matches, losing three of them.
But then, after an extraordinary 1-0 win over title-chasing Liverpool at Anfield, capped by Ebere Eze’s Goal of the Season winner, the Eagles’ season exploded into life.
A run of six wins (and 21 goals) in seven matches rounded off the league season and included our joint-biggest Premier League win on the final day of the season: 5-0 against Aston Villa.
Those results helped Palace secure just a second-ever top-half Premier League finish, highest-ever goals tally (57), and joint-best points tally (49) in the competition.
This season, Palace went winless in our first eight league matches but – after picking up our first win, against Tottenham Hotspur in late October – have bounced back to win six and draw six of our next 16 Premier League matches.
The Eagles also reached the Carabao Cup quarter-finals for the first time since 2011/12 season, and are into the FA Cup fifth-round for the first time in three years, where London rivals Millwall await at Selhurst Park.
Overall, Glasner’s record stands – after 44 matches in charge – at 19 wins, 12 draws and 13 defeats in all competitions, his 43.1% win percentage the highest of any Palace manager leading his team solely in the top-flight.
In his first year in charge, the team have scored 71 goals (an average of 1.6 goals per game) and conceded 51 times.
Jean-Philippe Mateta leads the way for Palace goalscorers in the last year, having struck 27 times in 43 matches since Glasner’s arrival. That total includes 24 goals in 38 Premier League matches, putting Mateta only two behind Mohamed Salah in the same timeframe – and fifth overall in the competition.
Ebere Eze has also struck double figures under the Austrian, scoring 11 times in 37 appearances in the last 12 months.
And, at the other end of the pitch, Palace have kept 15 clean sheets (Dean Henderson the goalkeeper for 12 of them) – an impressive rate of one clean sheet every three games under Glasner.
Happy one year in South London, Oliver!
