Oliver Glasner slams 'unacceptable' Crystal Palace performance in Burnley defeat

In partnership with

Evening Standard

·11 Februari 2026

Oliver Glasner slams 'unacceptable' Crystal Palace performance in Burnley defeat

Jorgen Strand Larsen struck early brace before Clarets responded with three goals in seven minutes

Oliver Glasner slammed his squad’s lack of leadership and consistency after Crystal Palace gave up a two-goal lead to lose 3-2 to Burnley.

Video OneFootball

The evening started well for Palace as January signing Jorgen Strand Larsen marked his home debut with a brace inside 33 minutes, but seven minutes of madness at the end of the first-half saw the Clarets flip the match on its head.

Hannibal Mejbri pulled one back with 40 minutes on the clock and Jaidon Anthony added an equaliser four minutes later. A Jefferson Lerma own-goal in first-half injury time had the Clarets ahead at the break, and despite their best efforts, Crystal Palace could not get back into it.

Glasner fumed as he dissected his side’s performance at full-time, laying into their effort levels and poor mentality after conceding.

“Honestly, I can’t explain it,” he began, speaking to TNT Sports. “We gave the game away way too easily. Maybe it was too easy. With our lack of intensity, we did not defend well.”

He continued, breaking down Burnley’s three goals: “Once we don’t defend well, once we make a mistake, one is a set play. We can’t show a consistent performance over 95 minutes very often. That is a little bit the problem. Once it is this, once it is that. You get punished.

“Start was good, scoring very nice goals, controlled everything. I watched all the goals back, and it is just not acceptable how we defended as a team, just jogging around, not in the duels, not on second balls. Second half, we tried everything and created, but did not deserve to win.

“I’ve praised the boys very often for the effort and we had a great effort three days ago at Brighton. It is not about the character, it is just today we - I don’t know the reasons - I know the players usually are very hardworking and today we missed this in these nine minutes.”

Palace had a penalty shout in the second half after an apparent handball in the Burnley box, but Glasner refused to point the finger at a refereeing error.

“They touched the ball with the hand, but again when I see it, it is a long ball, a second ball, then I don’t know what we want to do with this second ball. Not serious play, we lose it, and we can’t defend the one-v-one. We had this situation and we just can’t clear it.

“It is just not acceptable. On the other side, they seemed to get nervous after the 2-1. Right now we don’t have someone on the pitch who leads the team in these moments, who is the one who makes the players calm and decides the rhythm of the game. That is why we lost.”