Crystal Palace manager Oliver Glasner has confirmed he will leave the club this summer at the end of his contract.
Glasner guided Palace to their first major trophy as his side lifted the FA Cup last season with a 1-0 victory over Manchester City in the final, qualifying for Europe for the first time in the club’s history.
The Austrian’s announcement comes as Manchester City are in the process of finalising an agreement with Palace to sign centre-back Marc Guehi in a package worth £20million ($26.8m) plus bonuses and a sell-on clause.
“I told Steve (Parish, Palace chairman) I’m looking for a new challenge,” Glasner said on Friday. “It’s my feeling after everything and again, that’s why I told him in October. So, it’s nothing to do with the transfer window.
“It’s nothing, so all these (are) rumours. I hate if something is written or told that’s not true. It was very tough for me not to respond. It’s nothing to do with it. We have a great relationship and we’re always talking about what’s best for Crystal Palace.
“The reason is just for me, I’m looking for a new challenge. I haven’t spoken to any other club. No interest. I told the players and I promised them today that I will give my best to play the best ever season in Crystal Palace history. To break the points record of last season.”
Palace are without a win in nine matches across all competitions, and exited the FA Cup third round to Macclesfield of the National League North on Saturday, but Glasner insisted the timing of his future announcement is coincidental.
“With the negative runs of results we need positivity so sometimes it’s better to move forward and I spoke with Steve about it, wanted maybe to announce it before the transfer window with all these wrong rumours about transfer window,” Glasner said.
“We thought maybe it was not best moment, signing Brennan Johnson was great for the club. I didn’t want to do it after winning five in a row because if you lose you know what is responsible. It’s not my future or a player’s future, we can start to win again and this is the best thing for Palace.”
Palace are currently 13th in the Premier League after 21 rounds of action, and are in the play-off stages of the Conference League, where play Bosnian side Zrinjski, ahead of the knockout stage.
The 51-year-old succeeded Roy Hodgson as Palace boss after the former England manager stepped down from his role in February 2024. His side finished the 2023-24 season in strong form, winning six of their final seven Premier League matches and finishing in 10th place — their highest top-flight finish since 2014-15.
Alongside winning the FA Cup, Palace finished 12th in the 2024-25 season, and beat Liverpool on penalties following a 2-2 draw to win the Community Shield in August.
Glasner won the FA Cup with Palace last May (Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images)
Glasner was previously the head coach of Eintracht Frankfurt for two seasons. He was appointed by the German club in July 2021 and went on to win the Europa League in his first season by a penalty shoot-out victory over Rangers in the final.
He left Frankfurt following the conclusion of the 2022-23 campaign, in which his side finished seventh. Glasner has also coached Wolfsburg, LASK, SV Ried and was assistant at RB Salzburg during his early career.
Palace return to Premier League action on Saturday with a trip to Sunderland.
Glasner news not a shock – but nature of announcement was
In reality, Friday’s announcement did not come as a shock, but the nature and ferocity with which the news arrived took everyone by surprise.
Guehi was close to joining City, Glasner said. Did that affect his own future? No, because he had already made his mind up and he would be leaving in the summer.
Just as the initial blow was being digested came the second.
It had seemed clear for some time that the direction of travel was for Glasner to depart at the end of his contract and Guehi would be gone then too.
There was some surprise at the club that this was the day he chose to break the news publicly, but an appreciation too that there was nothing more they could have done to convince him that his future was best served at Palace
It is a huge shame but Glasner is the most successful manager in their history and still has the chance to achieve even greater things.
Whether this clarity will help their season is up for discussion. He is sincere in his belief that it will, but there can be no question that it also risks having a destabilising effect and ruining the final months of the campaign.