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In winning the Premier League manager of the month award for September, Oliver Glasner became the first Crystal Palace gaffer to take the gong since Tony Pulis in April 2014. Of course, Pulis could justifiably claim to have done more to earn his gaudy Perspex commemorative cuboid with four wins and a defeat, compared to his modern-day equivalent’s paltry draw and two wins. However, the man famously commemorated in song for wearing the club shop of whoever he happened to be managing wasn’t subsequently presented with an award for Austria coach of the year at a posh ceremony in Vienna, almost certainly due in no small part to the fact that he is Welsh. “It’s too many awards for me, I don’t feel that important!” protested Glasner in an interview with the Crystal Palace socials team, after beating compatriots in the field of ski-jumping and volleyball to the Niki award, named in honour of a famous Austrian who won two world championships with Ferrari, back in the days when F1 was still good.
With the latest international break almost over and the bread-and-butter business of top-flight football due to return this weekend, Glasner’s side are preparing to face Bournemouth on Saturday in a Bigger Cup qualification six-pointer that absolutely nobody is pitching as the In-Demand Manager derby, even though that’s exactly what it is. With the currency of both Glasner and Andoni Iraola – his opposite number at the Vitality Stadium – currently higher than the thread count on a pharaoh’s bedsheet, their respective clubs are understandably desperate to keep them on board. As is always the case when head coaches at upper-mid-ranking top-flight sides demonstrate they have something about about them, there are always richer, more high-profile outfits at home and abroad eager to lure them away with the prospect of lucrative multi-million-pound payoffs six or eight months further down the line when it turns out they’re not quite so good after all.
