Something needs to change for Crystal Palace.
For what seemed like a decent chunk of the travelling supporters who made the journey to watch a 1-1 draw with Zrinjski Mostar in the Conference League, that change would be the manager.
They expressed their displeasure with a laboured, disappointing performance in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the second half and at full-time, targeting Oliver Glasner in particular.
“We want Glasner out”, some of them sang at the end, to add to the “you’re getting sacked in the morning” that had come earlier.
The Austrian has now overseen just one victory in 15 games across all competitions. It is a dreadful run, but most alarming has been the way his team has lost all sense of their style, especially the intensity with which they played previously.
Their draw with Zrinjski, who were the second-worst team in the initial league phase that managed to qualify for this play-off round, was simply a continuation of what has been seen in much of the past two months. It was also similar to performances in both legs of August’s 1-0 aggregate play-off win over Fredrikstad, which just about earned them a place in the competition.
Palace struggled again as the team with the majority of possession. Despite their 72 per cent of possession to Zrinjski’s 28, it was the home side who produced a greater expected goals total (1.24 to 0.8) and who had the better chances to win this first leg.
Glasner had previously suggested he would consider changing his system.
“It doesn’t mean we will always play in this system,” he said in his press conference before Palace’s goalless draw with Aston Villa last month.
“Let’s see when Ismaila (Sarr) comes back from the Africa Cup of Nations, and we have JP (Mateta), Yeremy (Pino), and Brennan (Johnson) with him, when all four players are on the pitch together. If it’s best for the team, I will change the system immediately. I’ve done it everywhere (he has managed).”
That seemed to be a logical thing to do — trying something different — given that even by that stage, they were in a run of underwhelming form.
(Filip Filipovic/Getty Images)
Yet before their 2-1 defeat by Sunderland on January 16, again speaking in his press conference, he had decided against doing so.
“After this run we are in, these bad results, we have a lack of confidence,” he said. “How you get confidence back is to do the things that have already worked. They can rely on it. Changing everything just causes more chaos.
“That’s why we said, ‘OK, one step back, what worked well, what can we rely on?’. Let’s stick to this. Build the confidence up and get this joy in playing attacking football back again because right now, it looks more like work than they are enjoying it, and we can feel it.
“As soon as I think the system is a problem, I will change it immediately. The system is not important. We can change habits how we want.”
So much of Palace’s success under Glasner has been that consistency and the players knowing exactly what is required of them. It is partly why it takes time for new players to settle. But when that consistency is in passing the ball around slowly, ambling, allowing teams to become more defensively organised, perhaps it has mutated from a strength to a weakness.
Glasner sounded concerned post-match, speaking with TNT Sports, that Maxence Lacroix’s injury might keep him out of Sunday’s game with Wolverhampton Wanderers, and said Chadi Riad was cramping up. He suggested that they might have to use Tyrick Mitchell as a centre-back.
If that defensive injury crisis does not induce a change of formation, then at the very least they must change those ‘habits’.
After the 3-2 defeat by Burnley, Glasner said, “It felt like Sunday afternoon in the garden with my kids. We lost our foundation and intensity… we are walking, not even running. The last month, we don’t get a consistent performance in every phase.”
But that happened in Mostar, too. They showed intensity in the early stages and looked threatening, but failed to create many clear-cut chances and were unable to convert the ones they did. The momentum soon ebbed away. Just as it did at 2-0 up last Wednesday.
Sarr was Palace’s most dangerous player in Mostar, and his goal was well taken, but on the opposite side, Brennan Johnson once again failed to make any impact. Those two as opposite No 10s do not seem to work against teams where Palace will dominate possession.
Yeremy Pino, for his faults and own struggles, has the potential to provide that individual spark to unlock stubborn defences and provide crosses for Jorgen Strand Larsen.
Wolves have won once in the league all season, but their style is not hugely dissimilar to Palace’s. Failing to break them down would be catastrophic.
The same is true of the home leg against Zrinjski. Play with the same lethargy as in the second half of the away leg and they will be dumped out of the Conference League. Selhurst Park would be mutinous. But two victories would shift the mood to one of relief. Palace would be a huge step closer to Premier League safety and have advanced to the last 16 in Europe. It would be a chance to build momentum.
“We have to not let the doom and gloom get on top of us,” captain Dean Henderson told TNT Sport after the game.
Palace would much rather that everything worked out satisfactorily until the summer with Glasner.
They can, for now, still go on and lift the trophy in Leipzig. But fail to change anything on the pitch over the next week — and fail to win those crucial games at Selhurst — and it may end up being that the change has to come in the dugout.