Following the November international break, Crystal Palace return to Premier League action this Saturday – with Oliver Glasner speaking to the assembled media ahead of a trip to Molineux to face Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Wolves' new manager Rob Edwards' first game in charge will come against Glasner's side, with the Eagles having won three of our last four fixtures prior to the international window.
The 'new manager bounce' was one topic Glasner discussed in detail, along with Palace players' impressive international window, and how the Manager hopes to sustain a successful start to the season – read on for the key quotes below.
Read on below for the key quotes!
It was a great moment for Adam to start his first game for England
—Oliver Glasner
Yes, we have now so many international players! Adam deserved to start for England.
I counted, I think we have 10 players already qualified for the World Cup next year, so I think it's unique for Crystal Palace and it just shows the progress and the development of the players, it shows how hard they are working, because you always have to deserve it.
But we don't know, there’s still six months to go so I hope that all the players stay fit and are available then, because then they will perform for us on a very high level. It was a great moment for Adam to start his first game for England.
I just watched one [international] game to be honest, and this was Austria against Bosnia because it was a decisive game on Tuesday and we needed a point, and we got the point so Austria has also qualified.
It was a very interesting Tuesday because Austria Under-17s played against England Under-17s in the World Cup, and Austria beat England 4-0, so we had quite a lot of fun within the staff.
We had many positive aspects: Paddy McCarthy [coaching with Republic of Ireland, who] got the game winner at Hungary, and is now playing the play-offs against Czech Republic. Justin Devenny qualified for the play-offs [with Northern Ireland].
So yeah, it was a good international break but the best thing was that everybody came back fit and also it's the first time now that we had all the players in training on Thursday. Usually we had just the Friday training with them, and the players looked very sharp, very good today.
We have to prepare the team now to stay as successful as we started this season.
I told the players we’ve already played 19 games this season and we have a win average higher than 50%, and we’ve lost just three. We’ve only conceded 14 goals in 19 games so many, many positive things have happened, and it's now for us – and that's why I'm really pleased and looking forward to all these games that are coming – because the players are fit, the players have a great mood, we have a great energy in the group, so I don't see any reason why we shouldn't continue this success.
It's up to us, it's our responsibility and this group showed so many times that they can be a little bit different. It's a coincidence or not that we play Wolves now – we played Wolves three days after winning the FA Cup and nobody expected anything – me included to be honest!
We had no training, it was just two days partying, and we won 4-2. This is again the character of this group, and this is what we want to show again from tomorrow.
It's not just about the shape, it's more about the patterns
—Oliver Glasner
I think it's proven that there is no ‘new manager bounce’, but it may be a little bit more difficult for us to prepare.
We don't know exactly how they are playing this year – they’ve switched between a 3-4-3, 3-5-2 and 4-2-3-1. Rob Edwards played with Luton quite often in a 3-4-3. He started with Middlesbrough in this shape, but then changed it, and of course the analysts and my staff will look back also at what he did at Middlesbrough and what he did with Luton, because every manager has his own ideas.
On the other side, Wolves had many international players as well, so they didn't have a lot of training time, so we expect them playing how they played, with the players they have, with slight adjustments and on the other side we showed it many times that we can compete with every single team in England. This is what we will show and want to show tomorrow again.
It's not just about the shape, it's more about the patterns: how do we expect them to press us? What has he done with Luton and Middlesbrough? And then it's not so important which shape it was. How do they try to build it?
But on the other side also they have the players they have, with their strengths and their weaknesses, so you can't ask a player to do things that he can't do, you can ask him but I think it won't be quite successful and Rob Edwards is a great manager so he will also try to work and play with the strengths of his team.
Wolves have a lot of strengths. They’ve had a difficult start into the season, but I think they lost [Matheus] Cunha and [Rayan] Aït-Nouri, but they could keep [Jørgen] Strand Larsen. They signed wing-backs and all the others are still there.
They have two Brazilian internationals in central midfield, so it's a very good team. Every game in the Premier League you have to perform on your personal top level, and then you can win – and if you drop by five or 10 percent you will lose.
Wolverhampton Wanderers v Crystal Palace