The main talking points ahead of Crystal Palace’s 2024/25 Premier League campaign

With the start of the Premier League campaign drawing ever closer, this article analyses the main talking points ahead of a promising season for those in South London.

After a busy but brief tour of the east coast of the United States, Crystal Palace have returned to South London, with the Eagles set to face Ligue 1 side Nantes in a final pre-season clash before their 2024/25 Premier League campaign gets underway against Brentford the following weekend. The South London club enjoyed an excellent trip to the States, recording a 3-1 victory over Gary O’Neil’s Wolves in Maryland before repeating the impressive scoreline in Florida against Julien Lopetegui’s new look West Ham side, resulting in Palace lifting the Stateside Cup in the 69,000 seater home of NFL outfit, Tampa Bays.  Sunday will mark the beginning of what is a busy spell in London for Crystal Palace, with Oliver Glasner’s team not set to leave the capital until mid-September when they take on newly promoted Leicester.

Over the opening three games of the Premier League season, Palace will play against west London’s Brentford and Chelsea, with their maiden home game of the season against West Ham sandwiched in the middle of those two fixtures. Palace fans will be much enthused ahead of the new campaign after Oliver Glasner led a transformation of the team following his arrival in the latter half of the 2023/24 season.  The Austrian manager, who is set to turn 50 later this month, oversaw an excellent end to last season, with the Eagles winning 5 of their final 6 league games, including a 4-0 victory over Manchester United as well as a 5-0 thrashing of Unai Emery’s Aston Villa on the final day of the season, as they climbed into the top half of the table to finish in 10th place for the first time since 2015.

Palace to continue where they left off from?

With the end of Roy Hodgson’s tenure seeing Crystal Palace flirt with the relegation zone, the arrival of Glasner in late February of 2024, would mark the beginning of a complete turnaround.

The South London club quickly rose up the table, with their final eight games seeing the side lose just once against eventual champions, Manchester City, as they recorded impressive wins against Liverpool, Newcastle, Aston Villa and Manchester United, conceding nine goals and scoring 21 in the process.

While Glasner was the spark that had ignited the Palace turnaround, Jean Philippe Mateta or ‘JP’ – as he is affectionally called by Crystal Palace fans, was key to sustaining this supercharged South London side. The French forward, who had only previously scored 11 goals across 78 league appearances and three seasons in a Palace shirt, would quickly enter into the best goalscoring form of his career.

Under the guidance of Glasner, Mateta went onto score 13 goals across the final 12 games of the Premier League season including braces against West Ham and Newcastle as well as a final day hat-trick against Aston Villa.

Sarr to return to his best under Glasner?

While Olise’s £50 million departure to Bayern Munich was a devastating blow to many Palace fans, his replacement has already arrived in the shape of former Watford winger, Ismaila Sarr. The Senegalese forward joins for a fee in the region of £11 million after a solitary season at Marseille, in which two hamstring injuries and African Cup of Nations duty hampered the players efforts to bring any consistency to his time in the south of France, making just 10 goal contributions across 35 appearances.

Having now returned to the Premier League, Sarr will be hoping Glasner – who has a track record of revitalising players careers – can get him back playing his best football in front of the fans at Selhurst Park.

Prior to making the move to Palace and his time in Marseille, Sarr had enjoyed four and a half years at Watford, where after signing as their record transfer in a £30 million deal, the winger would go onto enjoy highs and lows, recording particularly impressive performances against Liverpool, in which he ended the eventual Champions 44 match unbeaten run, and Manchester United as he recorded 56 goal contributions across 131 games.

A mass exodus on the horizon?

Having already lost Olise to Bayern Munich, Palace fans may see another departure of one of their most prized assets – Eberechi Eze and Marc Guehi, as a sign of faltering ambition and as a mass exodus of their best talent when the club could be looking to push on under Glasner.

Marc Guehi, according to reports, has no intentions of signing a new deal with Crystal Palace, with just two years remaining on his current contract, and has reportedly already agreed personal terms with Newcastle United, with the Tyneside club now negotiating for a fee in the region of £60 million.

European football the aim under Glasner?

At the mention of European football, it is only right to note that the 2024/25 campaign for many Palace fans will hold real ambitions of securing European football for the first time since 1998 – when the Eagles became the first English club to feature in the Intertoto Cup, playing just one tie against Turkish side, Samsunspor. Palace fans have watched on in envy as their arch rivals, Brighton, enjoyed a fantastic maiden campaign in Europe, beating the likes of Ajax, Marseille and AEK Athens to finish top of their group before being knocked out by European regulars, Roma.

Furthermore, Aston Villa’s miraculous run into the Champions League places, a club that was in the second tier of English football as recently as 2019, demonstrates that those outside of the big six do have a very real shot at getting into Europe.  With Glasner having raised the ambition of Palace, who tasted European success before when he managed Eintracht Frankfurt to Europa League silverware in 2022, the fans of the South London side will arguably be buoyed with belief that their side can potentially secure a European spot.

Daichi Kamada, who has joined Palace this summer after previously working with Glasner at Frankfurt, where the pair won the Europa League together, spoke of Crystal Palace’s European ambition in his first interview with the club.

The Japanese midfielder said: “In the Premier League, I think one of the team’s main objectives is to qualify for next season’s European competition, and I hope I can contribute to that.

“When I was in Germany, my Frankfurt team tended to make great progress in the cup competitions. So in that sense, the cup competitions will be a good chance to win a trophy with Crystal Palace too, and I would like to play in this team with the aim of winning a big title like that.”