Crystal Palace are back at Selhurst Park to take on Leicester City, as the Premier League returns after the international break – and you can catch up on manager Oliver Glasner's key pre-match quotes below!
The Eagles will be looking to build on their first point of the season away at Chelsea's Stamford Bridge a fortnight ago.
Ahead of another busy block of matches, manager Oliver Glasner’s pre-match press conference saw a range of topics discussed – check out the key quotes below…
Loan signing Trevoh Chalobah will miss Saturday’s game against Leicester City with a muscle injury, Glasner confirmed.
“It's been a disruptive pre-season for all of us!
“He [Chalobah] is a great guy. Of course, it's very unlucky that he was injured in his first session with us, but he's a very good guy, a very positive guy, and you could also see it in this session that he has a lot of qualities. His physicality, his ambition will help us.
“I'm very pleased with all the new signings, great players, great characters, also we can see it with very good spirit in the group.
“Today was the first training session where we had all players available. Okay, [some of them] are injured, so that can happen, but it was the first possibility to train together. And so I also told the players, for us it's like a restart.
“Let's say when you have a Formula 1 car and you lose, or you have to change, one tyre, because it's 25%... it's the same in our squad. We have 30-40% changes in the squad, and this means we have to build the group new again.
“We have to find the common sense of playing, how we want to play on the pitch, how we want to treat each other in the locker room.
“And so this honestly started today, because the international players are the last – the Colombians [Daniel Muñoz and Jefferson Lerma] arrived yesterday afternoon. But I'm really looking forward, because the players, as I mentioned, great players, great talent, great characters.”
“Like every other player in our squad, we want that they can express themselves and to show their strengths, why they are professional players for Crystal Palace, playing in the Premier League.
“Eddie is a very smart player, I could see it from the first training, and very good technically. He has a great finish.
“We had a friendly game in the international break and he scored two goals, so he has this feeling, maybe you can't learn as a striker: how to move, where to move, and a great finish.
“But I'm really surprised in a positive way how hard he's working in training. He's always one of those guys who is running most in the training session, having the highest intensity in his training, so this is also very, very positive for us, and I'm happy that he's here.”
“We believe in his [Nketiah’s] quality. We believe in his mentality and his character, and he showed it. And so, yes, he's ready [to start games].
“Eddie can play different positions because he's very smart, as I mentioned. He's a different profile to Jean-Philippe [Mateta], who's taller, more physical, but whereas Eddie is more how he moves in the space and finding the space, and a very good technical player.
“And also it can be that we change our system. As I always said, it's not about the system, it is our habits, our patterns we have in and out of possession and transition moments. We will find the right setup for us.”
“I don't want to talk always about the past, because we also could say, you know, these were the last seven games [of last season], but the six before we didn't win… Before we started the winning streak, we were five points away from relegation.
“This was seven games before the end of the season, so I think it's not fair for the players, especially for them, to always talk about the last seven games. I think the past has gone.
“I think we did a brilliant job so that everything was fine. We didn't struggle with relegation and climbed up the table. But in the New Year, in the new season, you always have to prove yourself again.
“Even if we had the same squad, it doesn't mean when you have a great end of the season, you have a great start. And then you can also have a great start and then you fall back, so it's not for us, as I mentioned, and this is what we really started.
“And therefore, it was very helpful to get the point at Chelsea – this belief, this spirit again. And I could feel it during the game and in the second-half that the belief came back, how we played and what we did on the pitch. I could see how the players, how happy they were after the game, and this is the focus.
“It makes no sense talking about last season – different players, different environment – we can say now: ‘wow, what a win against Aston Villa.’ Four days earlier, they reached the Champions League and maybe they were not 100 percent focused. And then it's past.
“So now we face Leicester, the champion of the Championship. Well deserved. They got promoted last season, played really well, and we have to focus on Leicester and not on the games from the end of the season.”
Jordan Ayew returns to Selhurst Park with Leicester after six seasons’ service in SE25.
“I hope he gets a big applause from the fans, because he was a great player for Crystal Palace. But for me, much more important, he's really an unbelievably great guy.
“He deserves getting a big applause from the fans, and I'm sure they will do it, because he always left his heart on the pitch for Crystal Palace in the last six years.
“But of course, the applause is everything! It's the only gift we give him!
“We know about his quality, he always can score goals – he showed it for us. And it's a new challenge for him.
“And so the applause should be the only one, and we want to take the three points.”
