Oliver Glasner puffs his cheeks and starts the search for the right words to explain his emotions as he prepares to return to Crystal Palace for the first time since leaving. There is the small matter of heading back on Sunday with Nottingham Forest to Selhurst Park, where bitterness runs deep over the club seizing Palace’s place in the Europa League last season. Forest’s owner, Evangelos Marinakis, is suing Palace for defamation relating to a banner unfurled by their supporters and the rivalry heightened when Glasner joined Forest in the summer, 40 days after winning the Conference League with Palace.
By which point Glasner, a charismatic and intelligent individual who studied for an economics degree while a player in Austria, has turned to Faust, by the German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, to explain how he feels about facing his previous club. Palace also won the Community Shield for the first time under Glasner. It is owing to that unprecedented success that the Palace chair, Steve Parish, has said he would be mortified if Glasner receives anything but a hero’s welcome.
Glasner hopes the Palace supporters recall fond memories. It was then, in the summer, a decision for Nottingham Forest, due to different reasons. Sometimes unexpected things happen in life … there was no plan for me to be Forest manager.” Glasner, who remains in touch with Parish and has visited him in London, will not apologise for being outspoken.
He refers to the February episode when he told Palace supporters to “stay humble” after some had chanted for him to be sacked while on a run of one win in 15 matches, during which they were knocked out of the FA Cup by the part-timers Macclesfield. And then I have to accept the booing, I have to accept that not everybody is aligned with what I’m doing in my life. I’m now 52, I don’t need to ask everyone if it’s fine what I’m doing … as long as it’s aligned with the law.” Supremely comfortable in his own skin, Glasner is on good form across more than an hour of conversation, whether discussing working with Marinakis, experimenting with a four-man defence in last weekend’s friendly win over Swansea, or providing the lowdown on some hotly contested recovery sessions: an in-house padel tournament.
Nikola Milenkovic and Nicolás Domínguez were champions, beating Glasner and his assistant, Michael Angerschmid, in the final. A week on from victory at Aston Villa, Forest crashed to defeat at home to a previously pointless Coventry. Not on the pitch, but how you react in the club, in the team, all together.
Do you look for: ‘Well, it’s [because of] you, it’s [because of] you. It’s always the other ones, it’s never me.’ Then, things don’t change.” Forest fans can take heart from the fact Glasner also made a slow start to life at Palace, winning none of his opening eight league games. At Eintracht Frankfurt, he won none of his first eight matches but finished the season by hoisting the Europa League trophy in Seville.
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