On the pitch Crystal Palace’s attention is focused on the Conference League, but behind the scenes it is on trying to secure their next manager.
A 3-0 defeat by Andoni Iraola’s Bournemouth will only have served to embed the idea in the minds of the Palace hierarchy that he is the outstanding candidate to take them forward.
Mental fatigue played a significant part, Palace manager Oliver Glasner said after the game, in his team’s poor performance. It was their worst showing in the Premier League this season at an inconvenient time.
Palace, as The Athletic reported last month, are courting Iraola and hope to have a manager in place for the start of pre-season training. Bournemouth’s style of play has been cultivated by Iraola into an impressive one — they dominated at the Vitality Stadium on Sunday with positive, exciting, fluid attacking play and quick forward passing.
It is a style that Palace would welcome next season. This was not an audition, and Iraola has refused to be drawn on the possibility of a move. But with Glasner and Iraola leaving their positions this summer, it will surely only have strengthened Palace’s resolve to try to tempt him to south London.
Winning the Conference League, and therefore reaching the Europa League next season, would make the Palace job a more enticing prospect. Iraola is certain to have other suitors but it would do no harm in helping to persuade him that his best option is to move to Selhurst Park.
The two sides’ respective league positions — Bournemouth are sixth and Palace 15th — might make that a difficult argument, but Palace have been hampered by their gruelling European journey and their lack of quality outside Glasner’s preferred starting XI, particularly when hit by injuries and other unavailability, as they so often have been this season.
Will Hughes would have started this game but was unwell, so missed out entirely, while Borna Sosa would have been a better option at left wing-back than the inexperienced Justin Devenny playing out of position and toiling against the talented Rayan — a player Palace tracked but opted not to pursue last summer. Evann Guessand has a knee injury and Tyrick Mitchell has been managing an Achilles problem.
Rayan scores Bournemouth’s third goal against Crystal Palace (Steve Bardens/Getty Images)
Glasner prefers not to use the fixture list as an excuse but this was his side’s 55th game of the season compared to Bournemouth’s 37th. To that end, their league position is slightly false. Not in terms of what their performances have warranted, but simply that they would surely have fared better overall.
Palace’s chances of qualifying for Europe via the league were extremely slim entering this game, but victories over Bournemouth, Everton and Brentford in their final five league matches would have put them in a strong position. That hope has now been totally extinguished, even if the attention from Glasner was more on a possible record points tally than truly believing European qualification via the league was possible.
The fluidity that comes with a settled team in his system was entirely absent against Bournemouth, with overhit and misplaced passes in a first half which was equally poor all over the pitch and without a single shot from the away side.
Jorgen Strand Larsen has shown he can be an important player but his game is heavily focused on finishing chances as opposed to bringing team-mates into play. When so little is created by his colleagues, he tends to be ineffective — that was the case here. But it was not just the Norwegian who failed to make an impact in attack, Palace’s two No 10s in Yeremy Pino and Brennan Johnson were barely involved.
Strand Larsen’s tame shot at Djordje Petrovic early in the second half had the travelling supporters singing ironically at their first attempt of the game, while the home fans cheered Johnson’s dreadful clipped free kick, which went straight out of play for a goal kick.
“We were not fresh enough,” Glasner said, adding that the “players were mentally fatigued” as a hangover from returning to London on Friday evening from Poland to then travel to Bournemouth less than 24 hours later for an overnight stay. “Most of our players are playing (in Europe) for the first time in their career, this is why it didn’t work for us today.
“We always give our best but somewhere in the back of our mind is that Thursday maybe we qualify for a European final and this maybe is the biggest achievement in the club’s history. They have played many games against Bournemouth but never a European semi-final.
“When teams are playing for something they are highly motivated. For Bournemouth, this was their semi-final (to reach Europe) and ours is on Thursday.”
Palace may not be actively prioritising one competition over another, but this performance suggested their minds were not on the league as much as they might be.
It no longer matters too much. Relegation is extremely unlikely, albeit not impossible, and the same is true for any aspirations of a top-eight finish that would likely ensure Europe, even if they are unsuccessful on Thursday or come the final in Leipzig.
The attention is now on that semi-final second leg against Shakhtar Donetsk and the trip to Germany that could come as a result.
Rotating against Bournemouth was partly to avoid any injuries and offer the best chance of success in Europe. If Glasner can secure the Conference League trophy and deliver Europa League football next season, he will have led the club to three trophies and two European campaigns. He may also have played a part in bringing their top target for his successor to the club.
If any of that were to happen then this defeat and poor performance on the south coast would be a long way from anyone’s minds.
