With The crystal palace still winless after eight games, equaling their worst start to a Premier League seasonand Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday, Oliver Glasner is a man under pressure.

His position as manager is not yet under threat, but he has plenty to think about as he deals with his side’s failure to win and, just as significantly, he has even put in performances that look like they are close to click.

The Austrian spoke to the media for 37 minutes in his final press conference ahead of Friday’s match. Here, The Athletic analyze his comments.

On dealing with the pressure and relentless nature of the job

Glasner: “I have a phone call in the evening with my wife and kids. My daughter tells me about school, about riding, about going to athletics… and then soccer is far away. It gives you a different perspective on things. I try to take my time. He can be in the gym or he can go to the driving range, playing golf. It’s about freeing the mind. It is important to stay calm and not get swayed by all the emotions.

“I had six weeks off in the summer and I talked to my athletic director (Dougie Freedman) every day, sometimes two or three times. It’s always a 24-7 job. “What can I do with my staff, more input, more tactics, less tactics, more freedom and creativity, structure?” Defensively we are doing well. “Do we need more meetings? Fewer meetings? Individual meetings?”.

Analysis: Glasner is emotional on the sidelines, often calling out animatedly to his coaching staff, but tends to be calmer in the locker room. These words paint a picture of someone who recognizes that the reality of his work is one that requires full dedication and commitment, possibly at the expense of his personal life. Football dominates. The role consumes him.

He’s away from his family in a different country, with relatively fleeting daily contact via Zoom calls, and by his own admission, he’s feeling the pressure of a winless run. That must be a heavy burden.

Glasner joined Palace earlier this year but his family remains in Austria (Sebastian Frej/MB Media/Getty Images)

Did you feel the club fell behind in the transfer window?

“We could have done better in the transfer window. With four signings on deadline day, it’s not how you’d want a transfer window to work. Nobody says, ‘Yeah, we’ll wait until deadline day and then sign four players two weeks after Premier League it started even without (the signings having) any pre-season’.

“It is clear what we should have done better. But in the end it was the club’s decision.”

Analysis: It is not the first time he has decided to directly criticize the club’s transfer strategy this summer. While some might interpret this as deflection from perceived tactical failures or selection issues – things he can control – that’s not how it appears. He is clearly frustrated that he didn’t have a more complete squad to run with in pre-season.

Having players fit and sharp enough to start the campaign is a key part of his approach and he doesn’t think that was something the summer allowed to happen. The fact that so many of his players went deep into major international tournaments was another factor, disrupting the club’s preparations.

Are there unrealistic expectations of Palace after the team’s strong finish last season?

Glasner: “We all expected a lot, but sometimes you they have be realistic even if you don’t want to be. We have big goals and we want to achieve a lot. I was 10th last season. The ninth was West Ham which had a net spend of £140 million ($181.5 million). It was the eighth Manchester United and the seventh was Newcastle United. Fulham finished 12th and netted £50m and Brighton invested £180 million. These are the clubs surrounding us in the table and we have saved £20 million net.

“We all expected a lot from this season and it hurts. Maybe we’ve lost a bit of realism and now it’s about finding the right configuration for us between realism and also pushing to the limit of what we can achieve. It’s clear that what we’ve achieved now is not what we expected, so now we’re under realism.”

Analysis: This was a return to the transfer theme, and while the numbers are there to be disputed, Glasner’s overall point still holds true regarding the vast investment by the teams that finished immediately around Palace in the table last season. The south London club are operating very much within their means, both in terms of transfer fees and wages.

His comments do not appear to be a criticism of the smaller team he has to work with – he has previously appeared to support and even support operating with a smaller group. But there is an underlying unhappiness to the way the summer window has opened.

The late addition of corpses in the window, in particular, clearly remains a complaint.

GO DEEPER

Analyzing the Premier League’s 2024 summer transfer window

Is Jean-Philippe Mateta suffering from a post-Olympic hangover?

Glasner: “He will start against Tottenham. Last year was his highest scoring season for Palace ever far, far. Then you wait for the next record, but it’s not that easy.

“I read an interview from Phil Foden who said that after so many games, then the Euros, he is not in the form he was last year. Maybe it’s the same. We have players who are not used to this schedule, going to a tournament playing for their country all the way to the final. It was the first time for everyone. It’s also a small reason why maybe we’re not getting the results we’d like.”

Analysis: Palace had seven players whose countries were involved in finals at major tournaments this summer. Each suffered disrupted pre-season schedules as a result. An emotional and physical hangover was perhaps inevitable.

Did you make tactical mistakes or is the team’s fragility just a confidence issue?

Glasner: “When we talk about tactics as an issue, then it’s in our attack. I believe tactical training is never the problem and never the solution. The goal we scored at Brentford (on the opening weekend of the season) was a cross from Tyrick Mitchell and a header from Daniel Munoz.

“I was asked last season about Ebs (Eze) and Michael (Olise) and I said it was always a team product because our backs make so many runs and create space for them. Maybe right now we don’t have the belts to create space again. Our defenders don’t have that influence in our attacking play.

“It’s a bond between the players. It doesn’t mean that if you play with five strikers you score a lot of goals. They must match. Maybe you need different types of players. It’s more complicated than saying, “OK, let’s go to a 4-4-2 formation, put four attacking players and it’ll be fine, it’ll be easy.”

Analysis: It is interesting to hear Glasner discuss full-backs and suggest that they are the reason why there is less of a creative threat, given that instinctively it is easier to point to the sale of Olise to Bayern Munich as the root cause of to all Palace issues. The club signed different profiles of players – Daichi Kamada, Ismail Sarr — to fill the void. So far they haven’t had the same effect, but neither tried as the number 10 on the right has benefited from a fully fit and fit Munoz to open up space.

Palace have scored five league goals this season. One of these was contributed by a Brentford player. While Glasner seemed to suggest after the defeat at Forest that he was tempted to put more scorers on the pitch, it seems he has no intention of finding a way to fit all his attacking options into the same starting XI.

Mateta and Eze celebrate scoring against Norwich in the Carabao Cup (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

Were Kamada’s expectations too high?

Glasner: “If anyone expected him to be a goalscorer, that’s not something he’s ever been. If the expectation was to always be steady, always run 12km a game, work for the team, create for the team and score some goals, then I think that’s the way to go. Expectations were not that he would score 15 goals. He did that once and that was his best season, then it was five (goals). He is a guy who maybe he scored goals, but he wasn’t bought as a striker.”

Analysis: Kamada, as a player the manager was eyeing during the summer after working with Glasner at Eintracht Frankfurthas become a lightning rod for frustrations as he tries to adapt to life in the Premier League. Was selected at the City Ground to provide energy from midfield, although his impact was inconsistent.

He will continue to have the support of the manager but, until he influences a game, outsiders will retain their doubts.

GO DEEPER

What can Oliver Glasner change to revive Crystal Palace?

Palace topped the Premier League for converting shots in their last seven games last season. This year you are the 20th. Why?

Glasner: “It’s completely unfair for the team to always talk about the last seven games. Do you know how many goals Crystal Palace scored in their first eight games last season? It was seven. This year there are five. The year before, after 25 games, Palace had 22 goals (this figure was actually 21) even with Wilfried Zaha here. What happened (at the end of last season) was extraordinary: 57 goals was the most ever recorded. I don’t watch the last seven games because I know it’s not the truth about Crystal Palace.

“Last season we had a 1-1 draw at Nottingham, we had eight shots but we were efficient, our xG was lower than Monday’s 1-0 defeat (according to Opta, his xG Palace in that match was actually 1.19 vs 0.97 this season). to Liverpool in April xG was 3 to 0.6 (after Opta Palace’s xG was 1.98) and we won 1-0. This time it was closer. It’s about efficiency.

Eze and Eddie Nketiah scored another goal against Liverpool (Sebastian Frej/MB Media/Getty Images)

“Eze la Forest has two fantastic shots and an incredible save from Matz Sels. Last season he didn’t even think about it; shot and scored. We’ve lost that confidence (but) we have more moments in games where we can score than we did at the end of the season. We are below our expectations, but not far off.”

Analysis: Glasner gave this response forcefully, but not necessarily defensively. He didn’t give the impression that anyone was trying to justify himself, but he wanted to point out how unfair the comparisons with last season’s game are.

The Austrian is a perfectionist and is intellectually curious, someone who has great attention to detail and is studious. That came out here as he relayed several memorized statistics about his team’s performance.

Efficiency is one of his watchwords and he has been consistent in insisting that, along with confidence, it is the main reason for the decline. The improvement of both is his task.

(Top photo: Andrew Kearns – CameraSport via Getty Images)