Oliver Glasner says Crystal Palace are expecting a competitive match at the home of HŠK Zrinjski Mostar on Thursday (19th February, 18:45 CET local time / 17:45 GMT UK time), in the first leg of the UEFA Conference League play-off round.
The Eagles are participating in our first-ever knockout tie in a European competition proper over the next week – facing the Bosnian champions at Bijeli Brijeg Stadium, before hosting them at Selhurst Park next week.
During his pre-match press conference, Glasner discussed team news; how his team have prepared over the last week; and his expectations of both his own side, and Zrinjski, over the course of the tie...
No players have returned [since Burnley].
Jeff Lerma had to go off against Burnley. He has a hamstring injury. We're expecting to miss him for about three weeks.
Eddie Nketiah had a setback and we will miss him for a few more weeks. We don't know exactly how long.
JP Mateta is now in his rehab process. I hope he will be back in the next two or three weeks.
But all others are here and are ready.
We’ve had a good week of training – very intense training – and the players did well.
We are looking forward to the competition now that it continues. It’s the first time Crystal Palace have been playing European football, and being still in the competition in February is very positive.
But of course we want go as far as possible.
Whether it’s in the Europa League or the Champions League, playing two legs, it’s always going there to go to win the game.
Then, you see how the game is going. But I don’t like to enter the pitch and say a draw is fine, because then it’s always a little bit passive.
We want to play football. We want to score goals. We want to attack. But of course it’s always important to have a good balance and structure in the game, and this is what we want to show tomorrow.
I watched their full game against FK Borac Banja Luka on Saturday [a 3-0 defeat]. I think game was closer than the result. They had a disallowed goal, and it would have been a 1-1.
They like to play football. Good players. There are two players who played for my club where I was playing for 18 years, SV Ried: Stefano Surdanovic and Leo Mikić.
They tried to build up the game. We don't know exactly if they’ll play with a back four or a back five: in the Conference League, they played sometimes with a back five. In the league, normally with a back four.
But the style is many passes and good technical players. We are prepared and we have respect because they deserve to be in this qualification round. But of course we are here to win the game, to show a good performance.
But I think they are doing well. Normally, they don't concede a lot of goals. And they also don't score a lot of goals. Always tight results, especially in the Conference League.
Maybe we don't talk about the [Dynamo] Kyiv game [a 6-0 defeat for Zrinjski in the league phase – but all the others: it was 1-0 [defeat] at Mainz, 1-0 defeat at Rakow, a 2-1 win here over Hacken – so always very tight results, and therefore we have respect.
They were two different games. Against Larnaca we were very dominant. We just missed scoring a goal, and then we made one mistake and we lost.
And against KuPS we had 11 changes because two days later we played at Leeds, and in this game we scored.
I don't think that Zrinski will play very defensively tomorrow. But this is what they are always doing: they are pressing high. They are creating a lot of chances when they press high, especially from goal kicks.
And then if you break their press then they go back and are always defending with nine or 10 players around the box, therefore it is important to be patient and wait for the chances.
Especially if we lose the ball, we must be very aggressive to win the ball back and not give them chances for transitions.
Zrinjski Mostar v Crystal Palace
