Oliver Glasner highlights half-time message key to Crystal Palace fightback against Chelsea

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·4 Januari 2025

Oliver Glasner highlights half-time message key to Crystal Palace fightback against Chelsea

Crystal Palace boss is confident his team are good enough to beat the best sides in the Premier League

Oliver Glasner hailed his Crystal Palace side’s character in their fightback against Chelsea - and urged them to use it as a blueprint for the rest of the season.

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The Eagles were, by Glasner’s own admission, outplayed for much of the first-half of Saturday’s Premier League meeting at Selhurst Park and had some wasteful Chelsea finishing to thank for being only 1-0 down at the break.

However, the hosts grew into the contest and eventually struck a late equaliser through Jean-Philippe Mateta to grab a deserved share of the points.

Glasner had suggested his side showed Arsenal too much respect during their Carabao Cup defeat at the Emirates last month and suggested a similar flaw stifled the Eagles early on here.

“Sometimes it feels like we don’t trust that we can play more aggressive and it felt like this,” he explained. “The problem at the beginning was we lost the ball too quickly - within three or four passes the ball was gone.

“Then, the pressure increases and with all their quality its just not possible to defend every situation. With every chance they create and every ball you lose, the confidence goes down. That’s normal.

“I’m really pleased with them character not to lose your belief, to stay in the game and know that you can come back. That’s what we were talking about at half-time.”

After a slow start to the season in which they looked relegation contenders, Palace have turned their form around over the past two months, with back-to-back defeats to Arsenal their only losses since early November.

Glasner, whose reign got off to a flying start towards the back end of last season, is hoping his team will now kick on in the New Year.

“It’s more a question of mental confidence,” he said. “In the last 12 games we lost just two so the players can have more and more confidence.

“We know that we’re competitive when we do it. This is the challenge we all have together, to perform at our top level for the whole game. Then it’s possible to beat one of the top teams in the Premier League.”