FA Cup finalists Crystal Palace rewarded for keeping faith with Oliver Glasner

LONDON – When Crystal Palace failed to win any of their first eight English Premier League games this season, the alarm bells might have been ringing for their Austrian coach Oliver Glasner.

After all, England’s top flight is littered with examples of trigger-happy chairmen panicking at the first sign of trouble.

Thankfully for Glasner, Steve Parish kept the faith in the man he hired to replace Roy Hodgson 14 months ago and, on April 26 at Wembley, that decision looked like a masterstroke.

Glasner’s Palace side blew away Aston Villa 3-0 to reach the FA Cup final for only the third time and a first major trophy in the club’s 119-year existence is now tantalisingly close.

“I never had any doubt, watching him work, the positivity and the way he is,” Parish told the BBC on a giddy day for Palace fans who were sent into delirium by two superb goals by Ismaila Sarr after a stunning opener by Eberechi Eze.

“He loves football, always believes we can win and he instils that in his players.”

Palace’s start was puzzling, seeing as they finished the previous season like a house on fire, winning six of their last seven matches to finish 10th, including thrashing Villa 5-0 in the last game.

Admittedly, they had sold their outstanding winger Michael Olise to Bayern Munich and, more surprisingly, key defender Joachim Andersen to Fulham.

But Palace’s squad still retained the likes of Eze, Jean-Philippe Mateta and England defender Marc Guehi, so to suffer their worst start to a season since 1992-93 – scoring only five goals in those eight games – led some to fear for the future of former Eintracht Frankfurt coach Glasner.

A 1-0 win over Tottenham Hotspur in October offered some respite. But they remained in the bottom three until late November, and it was not until their 14th league game that they picked up their second victory.

Since then, they have not looked back and were even in the mix for Europe until a mini-slump of late.

Now, 50-year-old Glasner has the chance to deliver something really special for the club's passionate fanbase who turned their half of Wembley into a sea of blue and red on April 26.

“The most important thing is everyone stayed calm in the club,” said Glasner, who is the first Austrian manager to reach an FA Cup final.

“The team, such great guys and they always believed in us and have always had a great togetherness.”

England forward Eze put Palace ahead in the 31st minute with a sweetly struck right-foot shot from just outside the penalty area, after being picked out by the irrepressible Sarr.

Mateta blazed a penalty wide shortly after the restart, but Sarr later sent a long-range low drive past Emiliano Martinez just before the hour mark to put his side firmly in control.

The Palace party was already in full swing when Sarr burst clear in stoppage time to finish in style.

Less than a fortnight ago, Villa bowed out of the Champions League in a blaze of glory as they beat Paris Saint-Germain 3-2 at Villa Park – only to lose 5-4 on aggregate.

This time, though, they slunk out of Wembley looking crestfallen.

“At the moment it stings but some days football comes and punches you in the face and today is one of those days,” Villa captain John McGinn said. REUTERS