Who is Oliver Glasner? From marketing executive to Europa League winner Crystal Palace eye ‘spiky’ coach who fell out with club chief

Crystal Palace could be stepping out of their comfort zone by sacking Roy Hodgson, but this time they may have nailed the replacement.

talkSPORT understands that Palace will call time on the 76-year-old early due to a dismal run of form that’s left the Eagles slumping towards a relegation scrap.

That was very much the case in March 2023, when the south London side brought Hodgson back as their Patrick Vieira experiment began to fall apart.

Vieira came with promise, but Palace’s next manager brings far more than that.

Oliver Glasner, who chairman Steve Parish believes he can land, comes with even more prestige than Hodgson.

A Europa League winner with Eintracht Frankfurt in 2022, the Austrian has been one of the most respected brains in German football since he excelled with Wolfsburg from 2019 to 2021.

His European success made it twice that he’d taken unfancied sides into the Champions League, and a move to Selhurst Park would be somewhat of a coup.

Explaining further, talkSPORT’s European football expert and Bundesliga commentator Kevin Hatchard said: “Glasner is great, I’m a big, big fan, but the interesting thing is he’s quite spiky. 

“He was at Wolfsburg previously and got them into the Champions League, then he had a falling out with the CEO, Jorg Schmadtke [now at Liverpool] and moved on to Frankfurt where he won the Europa League in a brilliant campaign. 

“He plays very interesting football, really intense without the ball and quite exciting at times with the ball. 

“Fans tend to love him and really take to him because he’s passionate, he wants to do well and he’s demanding of the players and those above him, it tends to be that it’s those demands that he places on those above him that rub people the wrong way and cause problems.”

Glasner’s association with Frankfurt certainly ended prematurely, with defender Martin Hinteregger explaining how big a loss it was.

“Normally, after such success you would be a coach for life,” he said. “It will definitely be hard to find anyone better than Oliver.”

It’s no wonder that his players were so keen to back him either, with the Austrian defending them to the hilt.

In May, Glasner went viral outside of Germany when a 3-1 defeat to Hoffenheim saw his reign end on a low.

The 49-year-old fumed at a journalist who questioned his players’ commitment, furiously telling him to ‘stop with the garbage’ in intense scenes.

It’s no wonder that he has so much empathy for what his players go through, having had to end his career early himself.

Hatchard explained: “The really interesting thing about him is his playing career was ended by a brain haemorrhage issue and he basically got told ‘if you carry on playing you’re going to have a serious problem’.

“So he stopped playing and he went into Salzburg’s marketing department until their coach, Roger Schmidt [now at Benfica] said ‘you should be coaching, come and work with me’. 

“He went to work with him and learned the whole Red Bull style of pressing and here he is, a really highly-respected manager.”

So respected is Glasner, that he has regularly been linked with coaching Borussia Dortmund next season, but should the riches of the Premier League prove decisive, Palace may soon be on the up.