Oliver Glasner: How Crystal Palace hired him as manager – and how will he do the job?

The end of the Roy Hodgson era at Crystal Palace may have been chaotic, but the club have wasted no time in appointing his replacement.

Oliver Glasner has been chosen as the man to, in the short term, pull the club away from relegation danger and then, assuming that job is completed, deliver the kind of progress which proved beyond Hodgson this season.

But the process which brought Glasner to Selhurst Park has not been straightforward. Here, we explore how Palace appointed him, his background and how he is likely to set up his team.

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How Palace hired him

Glasner’s arrival as Crystal Palace manager has already achieved something rarely seen in the club’s boardroom: unity.

Palace’s owners — comprising four general partners, Steve Parish, John Textor, Josh Harris and David Blitzer — have been split in their views on how the club should be run for some time. Those divisions have often centred on long-term strategy, but they have also extended to who should take charge of the team.

Not all of those involved backed the decision to hand Hodgson a year’s contract in the summer, and neither were they enamoured by the length of time he was allowed to continue in his role despite results going awry. Textor, in particular, was against the decision to re-hire Hodgson last summer and wanted him replaced as long ago as December. But those divergences disappeared when it came to the decision to hire Glasner.

The Austrian has been admired by Textor since last summer – the U.S. businessman had also tried to hire him for Lyon, another member of his Eagle Football Holdings multi-club group – although Palace’s preference was to wait until the end of the season to make any permanent appointment. There was also scepticism that Glasner could be persuaded to join during the season, as he ideally wanted to have a full pre-season to work with his new squad.

But Palace’s poor run of form meant the club felt they could not afford to wait any longer. Efforts to hire Glasner intensified in January and the 49-year-old subsequently made a good impression on Parish — despite his general preference for candidates with Premier League experience — and sporting director Dougie Freedman, another influential voice in the club’s hierarchy. Harris and Blitzer, who are more removed despite having an equal vote on key decisions, were happy to go along with the prevailing mood.

In his conversations with Palace, Glasner’s attention to detail in how to improve the team was considered especially impressive, including suggesting specific team line-ups that could help mitigate the loss of key attacking players such as Eberechi Eze and Michael Olise. The nature of the questions he posed to members of the Palace hierarchy suggested his attention would be fixed on the squad and his work on the training ground as opposed to wider issues, such as the club’s infrastructure.

Glasner has been considered for other Premier League posts, and only just missed out to Nuno Espirito Santo for the Nottingham Forest job when Steve Cooper was sacked in December. Forest had been impressed by him as a candidate but there were concerns over whether his personality would gel with the club’s volatile owner Evangelos Marinakis.

Palace have always been mindful of the need to plan for life after Hodgson given he was only given a one-year contract, but the process has been accelerated after an alarming dip in form after Christmas, with various candidates coming under consideration.

Cooper had long been mooted as a potential candidate who might help bring through the next generation of homegrown Palace players from their revamped academy given his work with young players with the England under-17s. Textor was also impressed by his CV.

Cooper, too, was keen on the job: he had been thinking about his future ever since the end of last season, when it already seemed inevitable he would be departing Forest, and Palace appealed as a project. But, crucially, there were doubts within the Palace hierarchy about his record.

Palace also took soundings over Ipswich Town manager Kieran McKenna to assess whether he would be prepared to take the job following his impressive achievements at Portman Road, where he has taken his team out of League One and then straight into a Championship promotion race, all while implementing an attractive style of football.

Yet the fact he had not managed at the top level remained a nagging concern and talks did not progress.

Julen Lopetegui was also considered. The Spaniard had a track record in keeping a team in the Premier League, having hauled Wolverhampton Wanderers to 13th place after taking charge when they were bottom of the table in mid-November. He was considered a safe bet in terms of steering Palace away from danger.

But the former Wolves manager was never a particularly good fit for Palace, especially as he had left Wolves due to disagreements over transfer policy. Although there should be significant funds available in the summer if, as seems likely, one or more of Palace’s star players is sold, Lopetegui’s expected approach to recruitment did not align with Palace’s. In any case, his wage demands and the likelihood that he would bring a large coaching team with him were prohibitive.

Lopetegui’s camp also said that he would only have taken the job had he been able to wait until the summer, although he remains attracted to returning to the Premier League.

That left Glasner as the outstanding candidate. The former Eintracht Frankfurt head coach — who led the German club to the Europa League in 2022 — had consistently been admired by Textor while Freedman left a meeting with him with a very favourable impression. Not only was he a proven winner, but he also had a reputation for taking clubs to the next level and developing talent, especially in attack.

The lack of Premier League experience was likely to have been a factor against him for Parish, but any doubts were swiftly dispelled. The finances of the deal were not considered onerous — Glasner will earn in the region of £4million a year over the course of a deal that lasts until June 2026 — and an agreement in principle with his representatives was reached reasonably swiftly. The issue of summer signings did not feature heavily with Glasner during negotiations.

Glasner’s appointment seemed to be edging closer last Thursday, but later that day, Hodgson collapsed at Palace’s Beckenham training ground during a practice session and was taken to hospital. Palace were understandably mindful of their duty of care to Hodgson and the need to avoid jeopardising his health any further, and to treat him with the respect he deserved.

By that time, Glasner was already ensconced in a hotel in Greenwich, south-east London, effectively waiting to be appointed, but nothing could be signed before Hodgson’s departure had been formally agreed. In the meantime, Glasner attended the game between Tottenham Hotspur, who Palace face on March 2, and Wolverhampton Wanderers.

It had already been established that Glasner would bring a four members of his staff with him: a fitness specialist and three coaches, including the former Middlesbrough defender Emanuel Pogatetz, who had worked under Glasner at LASK. Pogatetz will act as the link between Glasner and the dressing room at Palace.

Confirmation of Hodgson’s departure finally came on Monday ahead of the team’s game at Everton, with Glasner’s appointment confirmed a little over an hour later.

Matt Woosnam and David Ornstein

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What kind of manager is he?

Everywhere he coached, Oliver Glasner has found success, if not longevity.

The former SV Ried defender — who ended his active career after suffering a brain haemorrhage at the age of 36 — was working in an office job at Red Bull Salzburg when a jog with Ralf Rangnick changed his life.

“He asked me, ‘Ralf, would it make sense to sit down with (coach) Roger Schmidt, because we’re still looking for an assistant coach?’” Rangnick told bundesliga.com in 2021. Two days later, Glasner was appointed Schmidt’s assistant.

Glasner enjoyed coaching, so he preferred to take over his former side Ried as manager in the second Austrian division rather than accompany Schmidt on his move to Bayer Leverkusen in 2014. Decent work there brought Glasner to the attention of LASK. Glasner won promotion with them in his debut campaign and twice finished in the European places to earn a big move to VfL Wolfsburg in Germany in 2019.

A seventh-placed finish at Wolfsburg wasn’t enough to qualify directly for Europe. They then lost their Europa League play-off game against AEK Athens to miss out on continental football altogether. But in his second season at Germany’s version of Motor City, results improved. A rock-solid back five and very efficient attacking game that relied on Dutch striker Wout Weghorst saw Wolfsburg shoot up the table.

Glasner, then a rather quiet character, suddenly made noise, too. In an interview with Sky, the manager openly criticised the transfer window dealings of sporting director Jorg Schmadtke, who is now at Liverpool.

“One of our targets was to bring in a player with pace and deep runs,” Glasner said in November 2020. “We didn’t manage to do that, despite talking about it for months.” Schmadtke fought back in an interview with Kicker magazine, calling Glasner’s ideas “unrealistic”.

The duo’s relationship broke down but the team kept on winning. By the end of the season, Wolfsburg had qualified for the Champions League for the third time in their history but Glasner was off to Eintracht Frankfurt.

His move to Germany’s financial capital in 2021 played out in a similar pattern, mixing sporting success with acrimony behind the scenes. Frankfurt were mid-table but sensational in the Europa League, winning the trophy undefeated after beating Rangers on penalties in the final.

Glasner’s second season saw them survive the group stage of their maiden Champions League campaign, powered by Randal Kolo Muani, and another seventh-place finish saw them qualify for Europe again. They also made it to the final of the DFB Pokal, where they were beaten 2-0 by RB Leipzig. But a falling out with sporting director Markus Krosche made it impossible for Glasner to stay in Frankfurt. He had repeatedly questioned the composition of the squad after not getting an additional centre back in the 2022-23 winter window.

“It’s a question of quality, you can’t coach quality,” Glasner said after losing 2-0 against Union Berlin last March. Predictably, his comments didn’t go down well with the board — or the dressing room.

Krosche had earlier said that the team had problems breaking down deep defences but Glasner disagreed, blaming problems defending their own goal instead. Towards the end of the season, the coach lost his nerve in a post-match press conference, shouting at a reporter for asking a “crap” question. He later apologised but Frankfurt CEO Axel Hellmann didn’t hide the club’s displeasure.

“I understand his frustration but you cannot have a go at a journalist, that wasn’t right,” Hellmann said, adding that Frankfurt’s poor form warranted more discussions over coming weeks. The writing was well on the wall by that point.

His irascibility aside, Glasner continued to be in demand over recent months. Not many coaches have shown such a consistent track record when it comes to getting the maximum out of teams without spending huge sums of money.

Palace might not be able to fulfil all his transfer market wishes either but sources close to Glasner, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivities of the recruitment process, have told The Athletic that the lure of the Premier League has proved irresistible.

Raphael Honigstein

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How will he play?

Glasner is not wedded to a single formation or system, and his adaptability is likely to be a feature of his time at Palace — especially in the short term as the club grapples with its injury crisis.

While he tended to prefer a wing-back system with a back three at Frankfurt, he also attempted to implement a style with a back four, adapting to the players available to him.

This is how they set up in the Europa League final against West Ham, with Filip Kostic and Ansgar Knauff well advanced as wing-backs and the whole team pushed high up the field to squeeze the space.

Glasner’s sides tend to be well organised, adhering to a coherent structure. “We have solidified ourselves in terms of developing a specific type of football over the past year and a half where everyone knows what to do,” he said while in charge of Frankfurt in January last year. “That is what we want to build on.”

He took inspiration from Rangnick and Schmidt while assistant at Salzburg, as well as Jurgen Klopp, admiring his counter-pressing style. Glasner has previously indicated a desire to press high and play engaging, exciting football with quick transitions from defence to attack. His football is direct and mostly counter-attacking, which would suit Palace — provided they had Olise and Eze available.

But he also sets his teams up to play patiently and with control in attack, not necessarily always preferring a quick back-to-front approach. At Frankfurt, this approach centred on Kostic and Kolo Muani, who were pivotal to how his side played.

Adaptability is also key. When Kostic left for Juventus in the summer of 2022 having just been named the club’s player of the year, Frankfurt’s midfielders subsequently pushed higher up the pitch as No 8s in an effort to mitigate his loss. This flexibility also applies to in-game management, and changing things according to what opponents do.

But he is not simply reactive; a key part of his management style is building up his own players. In the lead-up to Frankfurt’s Europa League win, he told the squad that their success had been built on the foundations of the semi-final defeat to Chelsea in the same competition in 2019 and to use that as extra motivation.

As with many coaches, he is ready to raid other sports for new ideas. He spent a week in San Francisco last year with NBA side Golden State Warriors to learn about different aspects of coaching and sometimes attended basketball and ice hockey games in Frankfurt.

Glasner is an active — and noisy — presence at his training ground, where he prefers to take charge of sessions himself, rather than delegate or watch from the sidelines. He can be abrupt and forthright when communicating his ideas to players but he has generally won their respect for his attention to detail and readiness to take time in demonstrating what he wants from them.

While there appears to be a preference for more rounded, complete players, it is thought he would still be prepared to work with younger talent and develop them in due course — a key consideration for Palace as they seek to harness the potential of their new academy.

Glasner may not instigate an immediate departure from Hodgson’s style, but in time he will put his own stamp on this squad.

Matt Woosnam and Thom Harris

(Top photo: Maja Hitij/Getty Images)