Oliver Glasner has come in for criticism for his outburst at the Crystal Palace hierarchy over the weekend, with Wayne Rooney also questioning the motives of the Eagles boss.
Palace have been on a really poor run of form, which continued on Saturday with a 2-1 defeat at Sunderland.
The loss leaves them 13th in the Premier League table, having also been dumped out of the FA Cup this month by Macclesfield, ending their reign as champions at the earliest possible stage.
Glasner’s beef with the board stems from selling prominent players and, he feels, them not being replaced.
Eberechi Eze left for Arsenal in the summer and Marc Guehi is about to join Manchester City, which was confirmed on Friday.
After the loss to the Black Cats, Glasner said: ‘We feel like we’re being abandoned completely. Selling our captain one day before a game – there is no understanding for this.’
He added: ‘If your heart gets ripped out twice a year, with Eze one day before a game in the summer and your captain one day before a game – I’ve just got no understanding.
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‘I’ve been in football for 30 years and never experienced this, not once. Now it happens twice in six or seven months. That’s just where we are now.’
These comments came the day after Glasner confirmed he would be leaving the club at the end of his contract in the summer.
‘A decision has already been taken, months ago. I had a meeting with Steve [Parish] in October, the international break,’ the Austrian said.
‘We had a very long talk, and I told him I will not sign a new contract.’
After the fierce criticism of the Palace hierarchy, Rooney expects Glasner to leave his role before the end of the campaign.
‘I don’t see how he continues,’ the former England striker said on The Wayne Rooney Show. ‘For me, it’s a bit of both really. I do feel for him because I was at the semi-final and the final last season, and the atmosphere and the feeling around Crystal Palace was incredible.
‘Obviously, they lost Eze in the summer. Marc Guehi stayed, but I think everyone knew he was probably going to leave in January. But then Glasner came out and said he’s agreed to leave in October…
‘So I’d like to know: did Brennan Johnson get told he was leaving when he signed for Crystal Palace [from Tottenham this month]? Did his agent get told? Because maybe that changes things for that player. So that’s one question.’
‘If he feels that bad, that let down and that the club have abandoned him and his players, then walk.’
Rooney suggested that Glasner should resign rather than wait out the rest of his contract or to be dismissed.
‘He also came out and said he’d been abandoned and had to tell the players that the captain was leaving the day before a game, but he’ll do everything to support the players,’ continued Rooney.
‘Then he comes out and tells the players he’s leaving. It’s all strange and I think he’s angling to try to get himself out of the club and try to get paid up. If he feels that bad, that let down and that the club have abandoned him and his players, then walk.’
Glasner was asked if he would remain in charge at Selhurst Park until the end of the season, saying: ‘I don’t know. I always have a huge appreciation for this group of players.
‘I completely trust them. Their character is exceptional and we will stick together and turn around. I will never step back because these players deserve Oliver Glasner as their manager and leader and this is what I will do.
‘Sometimes it would help if we had a little bit of support.’
‘He needs to show some respect’
Naming himself has riled up former Palace boss Alan Pardew, who accused Glasner of disrespect.
‘When you start talking about yourself in the third person like Glasner…he needs to show some respect to Crystal Palace,’ Pardew told talkSPORT.
‘With Glasner, I’m not into it when you’re talking to yourself in the third person. I made that mistake earlier in my career, it sounds wrong…you’re putting yourself in a position like “You deserve me”…well yeah, okay.
‘But at the end of the day, when you’re a football manager, you’re in control of the tactics of the team and motivation of the team, but you don’t own it, it’s not your money that’s invested in the team.
‘So therefore, you’re an employee and to talk like that really is asking for trouble.’
Oliver Glasner's explosive rant
‘The players gave everything they could. We made no substitutions – look at the bench, there are just kids there.
‘We feel like we’re being abandoned completely. Selling our captain one day before a game – there is no understanding for this.
‘We are preparing and then yesterday [Friday], I get told that our captain will be sold, but why not next week? At least he can play this game and then next week, other players are coming back. It makes me really upset.
‘If your heart gets ripped out twice a year, with [Eberechi] Eze one day before a game in the summer and your captain one day before a game – I’ve just got no understanding.
‘I’ve been in football for 30 years and never experienced this, not once. Now it happens twice in six or seven months. That’s just where we are now.
‘We’re playing for weeks now with just 12 or 13 players in our squad. Some players have played their 35th game now.
He added: ‘I heard yesterday at 10.30am for the first time that we were selling Marc. I think the negotiations were a few days long so nobody would have called at 10am and by 10.30am, everything was agreed.
‘Then we have to deal with it. One day before a game, we have to come to Sunderland, when we know we’re not on the best run. We know the circumstances with no players available and we’re selling our captain.
‘No team would do this. Other teams, the players play and then the next day, they’re leaving and we are selling the day before?’
Former Tottenham and Aston Villa boss Tim Sherwood was scathing of Glasner for his comments, saying he should know what to expect when taking over a club the size of Crystal Palace.
‘He wants to leave that football club as quickly as possible.’
‘It’s self-preservation,’ Sherwood told Sky Sports. ‘I’ve been there. He’s trying to look after his reputation. His reputation was so high, the iron was very, very hot when they won the FA Cup and qualified for Europe.
‘Now they’re losing games. It’s caught up with them, they haven’t got a strong squad, absolutely, but he knows when he takes the Palace job, he knows what he’s going into.
‘It’s Crystal Palace. You develop players and you sell them on if they outgrow the club. That’s exactly what’s happened.
‘[Andoni] Iraola at Bournemouth, look what’s happened to him, he lost all his back five last season, he’s lost [Antoine] Semenyo this year. Have you heard a squeak out of him? Not once have you heard him mention that because he knows what the job is and he gets on with it.
‘I see it from both sides. Of course I’d be disappointed if I was him, but I know what I’m going into, as long as they don’t move the goalposts on you – and I don’t think they’ve done that. We all know what Crystal Palace is.
‘All their fans would love to keep Michael Olise, [Ebere] Eze, [Jean-Phillipe] Mateta, [Adam] Wharton, palm off Marc Guehi and say we don’t care if you bid £100m, we’re going to keep him.
‘He has to realise the economics of the football club. That is a selling club. The fans won’t want to hear that but that’s reality. He knows what he went into. They gave him a platform in the Premier League, he’s done very, very well, I’m not coming away from that but that is pure self preservation.
‘You know what he wants? He wants to leave that football club as quickly as possible.’
Glasner is one of the front-runners to be the next permanent Manchester United manager, but his outburst against his bosses may have hurt his chances of taking the Old Trafford job.
