In the 1-0 loss to Bournemouth, Crystal Palace had several problems but now Oliver Glasner has explained.
As Crystal Palace once again failed to win on Tuesday night against Bournemouth, criticism of Oliver Glasner has emerged.
While it’s not him that the result is blamed on, with his players letting him down, there is one thing which was a mistake from Glasner.
Bringing 18-year-old David Ozoh off the bench in an unfamiliar position during a really difficult game was never going to end well.
Ozoh was partly culpable for the goal as one-time Palace reject, Antoine Semenyo, bullied him to set up the winning goal.
Now Glasner has explained his decision. Here’s what he said…
Oliver Glasner explains huge David Ozoh decision vs Bournemouth
In the loss to Bournemouth, there was one decision from the Austrian boss which left people baffled.
This saw a substitution, placing young central midfielder Ozoh into the centre of defence.
A position far from natural during a pivotal game.
Now Glasner has explained why he did this, as per South London Press.
“Jefferson [Lerma] has played that role several times at Bournemouth, so it’s not new. Will had a very good game but he was a little bit tired.
“We decided to get Jefferson back into his usual position and put David back there. He played that position in friendlies against Bodo/Glimt and Millwall.
“It would be too easy to blame him for the goal. This situation cost us one point because we didn’t score.”
Glasner ultimately can’t be blamed, Crystal Palace must strengthen this summer
While yes it was a silly decision to put Ozoh at centre-half, Glasner didn’t do it for fun, he barely has any options right now.
With injuries to Marc Guehi and Chris Richards, only Joachim Andersen is really a natural centre-half in the squad.
So we can’t blame Glasner for attempting to find solutions even after it backfires because he’s trying to solve a problem created long before he arrived.
Palace have such a poor squad beneath the first 11 that right now, they’re so exposed.
This summer, therefore, must see some serious strengthening take place, otherwise, Glasner won’t want to stick around long.
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