On-pitch performance
Winning the FA Cup should have brought more glamour than a European Conference League last-16 play-off against either Sigma Olomouc (Czech Republic) or Zrinjski Mostar (Bosnia-Herzegovina).
Palace’s demotion from the Europa League to Uefa’s third tier competition for ownership reasons hasn’t made their European debut much easier. A shadow team drew with the Finnish champions KuPS to leave Palace 10th in the Conference table and needing to win a two-legged play-off in February.
Domestically, they consolidated the first major trophy win in the club’s 120-year history with 26 points from their first 15 games this season – their best Premier League start. Manchester City brought them down with a bump with a 3-0 win at Selhurst Park, then they lost 4-1 at Leeds. There are signs that nine games in 36 days are going to stretch their squad.
Meanwhile England midfielder Adam Wharton has become a star with his round-the-corner passing. What he lacks in pace he makes up for in vision. Jean-Philippe Mateta, called up by France, continues to improve at centre-forward, with the downside that “bigger” clubs now fancy him. Captain Marc Guéhi’s future has been unclear for a long time without it diminishing his performances. The loss of right-back Daniel Muñoz to knee surgery will be painful. Ismaïla Sarr is at Afcon with Senegal.
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Seventeen of Palace’s 20 league wins before the Man City defeat were achieved with less than 50% possession. The Leeds result aside, they’re strong on the road, with a settled back three (Richards, Guéhi, Lacroix).
Money
A pre-tax loss of £33m on record revenues of £190m (with £134m spent on wages and salaries) in 2023-24 is a stable base for the new ownership. The big challenge now will be player retention and replacement and somehow raising limited stadium income. The higher profile will need more spending for it to be maintained.
Fan satisfaction
“We have Crystal Palace supporters for 60 years who never saw us win anything,” manager Oliver Glasner says, referencing the Wembley catharsis in May. “The club is in the best place it’s ever been in every single metric you can look at,” chairman Steve Parish told The Athletic.
Palace supporters are in that transitional phase between expecting little and having to process unfamiliar success. To many it still feels precarious. Losing a combination of Guehi, Wharton and Mateta would be hard to absorb and Glasner is Palace’s most successful manager with admirers at other clubs. They’ve never had it so good.
Products and prospects
Glasner’s success at Wolfsburg and Eintracht Frankfurt made him a shrewd acquisition. In his first full season in London he posted a club record Premier League points total and that FA Cup win. But the £60m received for Eberechi Eze wasn’t reinvested and Palace’s form after midweek European games has been poor, which suggests disorientation and a lack of squad depth.
Glasner’s contract expires this summer. He dismisses questions about whether he’s staying.
Five academy players were promoted for the KuPS game so Glasner could rest the first XI to face Leeds. Joél Drakes-Thomas (16), Dean Benamar (17) and 18-year-old George King all earned good reviews.
Benji Casey, Justin Devenny, Kaden Rodney and Rio Cardines are other prospects.
Ownership
Part-owner John Textor’s stake in Lyon cost Palace financially and emotionally when a breach of multi-club ownership regulations forced them out of the Europa League. In July Textor sold his 43%, £190m stake to New York Jets owner and former US ambassador to the UK, Woody Johnson – yet another spill-over into English football of spare funds from American sport. Parish, Josh Harris and David Blitzer are minority owners. The next two transfer windows should tell Palace fans how dynamic Johnson is willing to be.
Women’s team
Founded in 1992, they are in the Women’s Super League 2 and play at Sutton United’s VBS Community Stadium (5,013). As with many women’s teams in this Audit series, they’re now part of the fabric without looking like they’re going anywhere fast.
They made a poor start to this campaign but then won five in a row under manager Jo Potter, the former England midfielder and BBC pundit. Bringing Kirsty Howat (five goals in May 2024) from Potter’s previous club Rangers was a smart move.
History
According to Parish, of the club’s 1,000 top-flight fixtures, 470 have come since they returned to the Premier League in 2013 – “a good reminder of just how far this club has come in the last 12 years”. Eleven years in a row in that sequence they finished between 10th and 15th.
Glasner said recently “the players aren’t happy to be 15th anymore… they have tasted the sweet honey”. Just “surviving in the Premier League” is an outdated target. Palace have been as high as fourth this season and never tire of mentioning the summer’s FA Cup-Community Shield double. It beats a previous claim to fame: the most points gained by a relegated Premier League club – 49, in the 42-game 1992-93 season.
Their yo-yo days should be long gone.
Stadium
Designed by the esteemed Archibald Leitch, Selhurst Park opened in 1924 and remains one of the league’s few traditional grounds, surrounded by suburban streets and a capacity of just 25,486. The plan is to raise it to over 34,000 by extending the Main Stand, where pillars obstruct the view. The obtrusive Holmesdale Road stand is the fans’ spiritual HQ.
From 2010-2020 a majestic American bald eagle called Kayla flew between the stands before games. She died aged 28 from a heart attack (she also had gout) and has not been replaced.
Atmosphere
Part Bundesliga, part Serie A ultra culture, Selhurst Park can be a raucous place. The Holmesdale Fanatics have cultivated an image of political defiance mixed with febrile support for the side.
The “Glad All Over” Dave Clark Five anthem started in 1964 (the band played it at Selhurst Park four years later). The club’s cover-version of the song for the 1990 FA Cup final reached 47 in the singles chart.
First time visitors to Selhurst Park may be surprised to see pom-pommed cheerleaders greeting the teams. In 2018 Palace came under pressure to drop the “Crystals” or “Crystal Girls” when darts and F1 removed “walk-on” and “grid women” from their build-ups, but Palace’s cheerleaders endured. They are believed to be the last in English football.
Photograph by KontentHaus & Sebastian Frej/Getty