Oliver Glasner makes his point with Crystal Palace 'goalscoring machine' remarks

Oliver Glasner has claimed were never a “goalscoring machine” even with Wilf Zaha and Michael Olise after netting the fewest goals in the top five leagues this season.

And the Austrian claimed the red-hot end to the last campaign was not “the truth” about the South London club.

With Bayern Munich-bound Olise in superb form, the Eagles won six of their last seven matches to equal their best Premier League finish of 10th place. The contrast with this season is stark. Palace have gone from first to 20th in overall shot conversion as they have failed to win any of their first eight Premier League games for the first time since 1992-93.

And you have to go down to Marine, 23rd in National League North, for a club who have scored fewer than Palace’s five goals this season. Palace, now in 18th, have gone from to Championship form over the summer.

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But before Sunday's visit of , the Austrian said: “I think it is completely unfair to the team and to be always talking about these last six or seven games of last season. Do you know how many goals Crystal Palace scored in the first eight games of last season? Seven. This year it is five. And then Michael Olise was here and Jordan Ayew.

"The year before Crystal Palace, after 25 games, had 22 goals scored. And there was even Wilfried Zaha here. So it is not that Crystal Palace was the goalscoring machine in the Premier League. It never has been. What happened in the last seven or eight games was extraordinary for Crystal Palace.

“The amount of goals at the end of the season - I think it was 57 - was the highest ever. Yes we are not happy with just scoring five. But I don’t always look at the last seven games because I know it is not the truth about Crystal Palace.”

In a passionate defence of his team, Glasner cited Eberechi Eze and Jean-Phillipe Mateta as players who were scoring for fun last season and have now lost “confidence”. Mateta scored 13 in his last 13 games last season and then five more in the Olympics. He has two Premier League goals this season. Eze - one of four Palace players in the England squad at Euro 2024, has been dropped after scoring once.

After also selling Joachim Andersen in the summer, Glasner has repeatedly voiced his irritation after four needed reinforcements only arriving on the last day of the window. And Matheus Franca is still not fit, while Adam Wharton is delaying an operation on a groin problem to keep playing.

“He will be with us for at least the next week - we have three games - and then we will see what happens,” said the former Eintracht Frankfurt boss..

From being linked with the job over the summer, Glasner’s position is now being linked with and ex-Brighton boss Graham Potter. really is a funny old game. But the stats for previous Palace managers under safety first chairman Steve Parish are serious for Glasner. Palace sacked Frank de Boer after four opening Premier League defeats in 2017 and Patrick Vieira was gone after failing to win the first 12 games of 2023.

Now Glasner is running out of time and games with Spurs, Aston Villa in the Carabao Cup, and then coming before the next international break threatening to add up to his own dirty dozen.

Glasner said he escaped the “24/7” job by going to the gym, the range and calling his family back in Austria.

“You are always under pressure, especially if you don’t have the results that we all want," he said. "I didn’t find any game where there was no chance to win it. We need to get this last 10% we need to win the game.”

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