CRYSTAL Palace boss Oliver Glasner outlined what he expects from Millwall in their Carabao Cup Third Round clash tomorrow (kick-off 8pm).
The Lions take on their south London rivals for the second time this calendar year at Selhurst Park, with the Eagles beating Millwall 3-1 in the FA Cup Fifth Round on March 1.
Palace head into the game having won the Community Shield for the first time in their history, beating Liverpool on penalties, and taken six points from their first four league games – drawing thrice and beating Aston Villa 3-0.
Glasner expects a physical contest tomorrow.
“They’re a team that’s tough to play against: very physical, very direct, very strong with set-pieces, playing in a 4-4-2 shape, two strikers,” Glasner said. “They have tall, physical, centre-backs as well, quite direct, so they’re not giving you a lot of space.”
“We played them in pre-season, our first game as well, behind closed doors, and they’re a good Championship team.
“I think their start was okay, maybe not brilliant, but it was okay. They drew [1-1] at Charlton at the weekend.
“We are ready for Millwall, but like with every other opposition, we have big respect for their players, for their manager, for the way they are playing – and we feel ready to compete and win.”
Glasner has already confirmed he intends to hand two players their debut, with ex-Millwall winger Romain Esse also potentially in line to feature. Glasner insisted that, regardless of fielding a slightly weaker starting eleven, he intends to progress to the next round of the cup.
“Always,” Glasner. “Every single game is a game to win, every single game is a game to show our way of playing, every single game now is a chance to get into the rhythm, because we need rhythm.
“We have a few late signings, and they need to play a few minutes because we don’t have training time, to give them time to adapt to the way we are playing, and therefore every game is important.
“But, of course, at the end, there’s one big goal – to win the game – and this is regardless of which competition we are playing.”
Palace are unbeaten in fifteen matches in all competitions heading into the tie tomorrow.
“It’s the players, the group of players,” Glasner said. “They can be proud because they did it, so it’s their achievement, but I hope there will follow a few more.
“We feel in very good shape. We had a long meeting today, where we showed the players where we can and also have to improve, to extend this [unbeaten] run, to win more games.
“In the last games we were unbeaten, but I feel we had too many draws, and therefore we need to score more goals, and this is what we showed them, what we need more: we need more runs in behind, we need more to threaten the defensive line, we need more players in the box, being more ruthless around the box and in the box, and this is what we showed the players.
“Tomorrow is the next opportunity to do it better, and this is what we will try.”