Glasner Can Put Final Nail in the Coffin of Sage's Crystal Palace Career

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Crystal Palace face yet more hurt at the hands of their former manager amid increasingly poisonous Nottingham Forest rivalry

Oliver Glasner will return to Selhurst Park with his Nottingham Forest side on Sunday with his reputation among the Crystal Palace fans a far cry from what it was as little as a year ago.

The Austrian was responsible for the Eagles' glorious sequence which saw them lift three trophies in quick succession, representing their first ever major silverware.

Upsetting Manchester City at Wembley in May 2025 secured a wonderful FA Cup triumph, which in turn led to a Community Shield win over Liverpool at the same venue at the start of last season, and European football which culminated in the Europa Conference League trophy just five months ago.

But Glasner's standing had already started to drop on the way to that historic European trophy win last term, after announcing in January his intention to leave the club in the summer amid stuttering Premier League form.

Far from being the returning hero who ended the decades-long wait for material success in south London the now-Forest boss Glasner instead looks more likely to compound the chaos he left behind by further destabilising, and potentially ending, the reign of his successor Pierre Sage.

Coming back from the long international break Palace find themselves 15th in the Premier League table, which in itself isn't out of keeping with recent seasons, but after just one win from five and two points from bottom-placed Tottenham the early going under Sage hasn't gone according to plan.

Steve Parish and company would have obviously been looking to kick on from their recent success under Glasner when they appointed former Lens boss Sage, but a defeat against his predecessor could see the Palace hierarchy thinking about a quick change of in the dug-out.

The current situation isn't exactly comparable to the Frank De Boer debacle of 2017 but there is precedent for the Eagles to sack managers early in the campaign if things aren't going right.

And in the circumstances a bad result against Forest is arguably worth two or three against most other teams, given the bad feeling that his built up with Evangelos Marinakis' outfit in a short space of time, and which Glasner has only added to.

When the 52-year-old subsequently took over at the City Ground , despite speculation that he was departing to make the step up to a European or Premier League powerhouse, he ensured his relationship with Palace's support would be soured for the foreseeable future.

The Eagles were set for a place in last season's Europa League it not for the regulatory mess they got themselves into with UEFA over former co-owner John Textor's stake in Lyon. Forest sent a letter to UEFA warning them a potential breach of the qualifying rules at Selhurst Park and subsequently took Palace's place in the second-tier competition. While that may have ultimately worked out positively thanks to Glasner guiding his side to the Conference League trophy and Forest falling in the semis of the Europa League, the latter saw an opportunity to take advantage of Palace's problems and did so.

Glasner clearly makes his own decisions and will have known fully well that crossing this newly-formed divide, and then taking Daniel Munoz with him, would illicit a strong reaction just as it would between any traditional rivals.

So if he records another victory at Selhurst Park, this time in charge of the opposition, and not just any opposition, it is bound to ratchet up the reaction from the home support, and the dreaded 'optics' of the situation will be appalling for Sage and his bosses.

The pressure is undoubtedly on in the circumstances, but if a damaging loss at Glasner's hands might represent the death-knell for Sage's young reign then the opposite is also true and a victory could prove a springboard to getting his show on the road at last.

Forest are far from unbeatable themselves, sitting just a point and two places above Palace, so the opportunity is there for the hosts. But it also raises the stakes around a defeat and removes many of the excuses that might otherwise be available.

Glasner's return promises to be a game surrounded by strong emotions on all sides, and the former manager's presence might create a make-or-break situation for the current one.

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