Palace beat Forest 3-1 on Glasner’s unhappy return to Selhurst Park

Crystal Palace came from a goal down to beat Nottingham Forest 3-1 at Selhurst Park on Sunday, spoiling Oliver Glasner’s first return to the club he used to manage. According to The Guardian, the result gave Pierre Sage his first home Premier League win since replacing Glasner in the summer, while home fans told the Austrian he would be “getting sacked in the morning”.

What happened

The Guardian reports that Glasner, now Nottingham Forest’s head coach, was given a rapturous reception by the Palace supporters who once worshipped him. The goodwill seemed to reach the pitch early on. Forest went ahead in the opening minutes when a weak header from Palace wingback Anan Khalaili let Dan Ndoye run through and beat goalkeeper Walter Benítez with ease.

The Guardian describes Palace as awful for the first half hour. Forest kept pressing, and Jefferson Lerma, filling in at the back because Axel Disasi was suspended, looked particularly vulnerable. Benítez kept Palace in the game. He tipped over a shot from Ndoye, and Daniel Muñoz, a former Palace player, came within inches of scoring against his old club.

The moment that turned the match, according to the report, was a double save by Benítez that denied Liam Delap from three yards out, with the goalkeeper pushing Morgan Gibbs-White’s shot on to the crossbar. Delap also missed a good chance with a header. Just before half-time, Daichi Kamada scrambled in the equaliser from inside the six-yard area after a pass from Jørgen Strand Larsen deflected into his path.

The Guardian notes the irony of that goal. Kamada won the Europa League under Glasner at Eintracht Frankfurt, and Glasner later brought him to Selhurst Park on a free transfer. The equaliser was Kamada’s first Premier League goal, in his 68th appearance.

Palace went ahead soon after. Forest goalkeeper Matz Sels tipped over a volley from Tyrick Mitchell, and from the resulting corner Lerma rose highest, with the ball squirming through Sels’s legs and just over the line. The Guardian says Glasner looked deeply unimpressed as he walked down the tunnel at half-time.

Forest had chances after the break, including a Gibbs-White header that Mitchell deflected on to the post. Palace settled it when a pass from Quinten Timber was diverted towards Strand Larsen and Yéremy Pino scored from the rebound. Ndoye and Neco Williams both had late chances, but The Guardian concludes that Forest, and Glasner, were well beaten by then.

Why it matters if you live in United Kingdom

If you have recently started following English football, this match shows how quickly a manager’s return can become a story about more than the result. The Guardian reports that there has been plenty of tension between the two clubs since they last met at Selhurst Park in August of last year.

Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis, whom the newspaper calls notoriously trigger-happy, was not in the directors’ box on Sunday. The Guardian says he has had public disputes with Palace chairman Steve Parish. Marinakis is suing Palace and “persons unknown” over a banner showing an incendiary cartoon of him, which was displayed during the first half of last season’s fixture. The supporters’ group believed to be behind the banner has since disbanded.

The Guardian adds that Glasner’s move to Forest in the summer deepened the bad feeling left by the dispute over Palace’s removal from the Europa League last season. Even so, home fans saved their hostility for others. They sang their anti-Uefa and anti-Marinakis song, which The Guardian calls the soundtrack to Palace’s Conference League win under Glasner. Forest’s travelling fans replied with “We’ve got Ollie Glasner”.

For anyone planning to go to a Premier League match, the report is a useful reminder of what the atmosphere can be like. Chants, rivalries and long-running grievances between clubs are a big part of matchday culture in England, and they can shape the mood around a fixture long before kick-off.

What to watch next

The main question is Glasner’s future at Forest. The Guardian says that both he and Marinakis will be seriously concerned by how the team collapsed after conceding the equaliser. Given the newspaper’s description of the owner, supporters will be watching Forest’s next results closely.

For Palace, the win is a step forward for Sage, but the report points to a weakness he has inherited from Glasner: defending set-pieces. Palace were fortunate when Gibbs-White’s header hit the post, and The Guardian suggests opponents will try to exploit this. Disasi’s return from suspension should help, as his absence pushed Lerma into an unfamiliar defensive role, although Lerma also scored the goal that put Palace in front.

Off the pitch, Marinakis’s legal action against Palace continues. With the Europa League dispute still a sore point among Palace fans, the relationship between the two clubs looks likely to remain tense whenever they meet.

Source: The Guardian