GLAD OL OVER
Ward pleased with new Eagles boss
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JOEL WARD admitted he knew very little about Oliver Glasner before he was named Crystal Palace’s new manager last week.
A few Google searches, three training sessions, and a convincing win later and the Eagles skipper is feeling glad all over about the appointment of Roy Hodgson’s successor.
Ward’s lack of knowledge about the new boss means
Glasner’s decision to spend most of last week teeing up getting-to-know-you meetings rather than focus on tactics was probably a wise decision.
But that does not mean that side of things was neglected, as Ward (circle) revealed there were a number of tweaks made. And he is expecting plenty more over the coming weeks.
Ward said: “I did not massively know about him. You see his pedigree in Europe and you see the stats coming out but I didn’t know anyone directly that had worked with him.
“So he’s something a little bit different. He has come in and tweaked a few things here and there, and there is certainly more to come.”
Glasner revealed those tweaks included a demand on his players make more runs into the spaces behind the back four. There was also an emphasis on improving a Premier
League-low one goal scored from setpieces. But asking his players to press with more intensity had the biggest impact on this game.
None did it more successfully than Jefferson Lerma, who intercepted keeper James Trafford’s poor pass, forcing Josh Brownhill into a red-card foul to stop the Palace midfielder.
The 10 men of Burnley held out until the 68th-minute when Chris Richards headed in his first Premier League goal from Jordan Ayew’s far-post cross. Glasner revealed an Achilles injury prevented him from any overthe-top celebrations of the first goal of his reign. Ayew added the second from sub Matheus Franca’s low cross to the far post and Franca earned a 79th-minute penalty when he was felled by Vitinho, with Jeanphilippe Mateta scoring from the spot.
Glasner (top) said: “We asked the players to make more runs behind the back line of Burnley. We played to our wing-back and then Jean-philip would attack the space behind. This was maybe something they had not done before.we had 15 corners and I don’t know how many free-kicks. About 30 percent of all goals scored are from set-pieces so we have to work on it.” PALACE (5-2-3): Johnstone 7; Munoz 7, Ward 7, Richards 7, Andersen 6 (Tomkins 90), Mitchell 6; Wharton 7 (Ahamada 66, 7), Lerma 7; Edouard 6 (Franca 66), Mateta 6, AYEW 8 (Ozoh 90)
BURNLEY (4-4-2): Trafford 5; Assignon 6, O’shea 6, Esteve 7, Taylor 6 (Vitinho 75); Gudmundsson 6 (Cork 90), Berge 5, Brownhill 4, Odobert 6 (Manuel 90); Fofana 6 (Rodriguez 90), Amdouni 5 (Cullen 37, 6)