BY ANDREW MCSTEEN
On the cusp of an FA Cup final and potential record Premier League points tally, Crystal Palace co-owner Steve Parish has outlined the transfer policy of the club.
There is speculation surrounding not only manager Oliver Glasner but England internationals Marc Guehi, Ebere Eze and Adam Wharton, French striker Jean-Philippe Mateta and Colombian international Daniel Munoz.
“The first thing is we need to stay in the division. That’s the first ‘North Star’, but that’s not easy – as we can see from Manchester United and Tottenham this year,” said Parish, speaking to the ‘It’s Called Soccer!’ podcast.
“After that we will be a trading club if we want to survive and thrive in this division. That’s really for two reasons – financially you have to cover the costs of running the cub. And, secondly, the kind of players we want to attract, we need to show them a pathway.
“We talk about two sorts of players that come to us – we’re a destination for those great professionals that have still got a massive competitive instinct, who still want to do well and still cross the white line and want to give everything, but they realise they’re probably not quite going to get to the level above us, but they still want to compete every week.
Tottenham Hotspur v Crystal Palace, Premier League, Tottenham Hotspur stadium, 11 May 2025
Picture: Keith Gillard
“And then for players that are on a journey, that are on their way to the Bayern Munichs and other clubs.
“We’ve realised over a period of time that we have to be really open to it.
“The thing that you have to do with clubs like ours is manage that process, so not to lose too many. I remember Sir Alex Ferguson used to try and bring in two players every summer. He thought more than that was very difficult to integrate in the squad. That would be the kind of number of your real, premium talent that you would really be able to deal with in any one summer. So trying to time things that you can manage is what we’re trying to do.”
For Glasner, he is well aware of the realities of the club in the transfer market and was happy to address a question in his pre-FA Cup final media conference about bigger, richer clubs potentially taking his key players this summer.
Tottenham Hotspur v Crystal Palace, Premier League, Tottenham Hotspur stadium, 11 May 2025
Picture: Keith Gillard
“It could be, it happened with one or two players last year and could be again, but I really trust the chairman and the owners and the club,” he said.
“I’m pretty sure we won’t sell eight or nine players and start two levels lower, so I’m really convinced.
“Every single player sees the development of the club, sees the development of the team, and everybody wants to be part of a big development and then let’s see, because it’s football. The transfer window will open again and a few transfers will be executed. Everyone who is here has a contract.”
The players that currently make up the Eagles have been called by many observers as one of the best Palace teams in recent years, maybe of all-time, so does Parish agree?
“It’s hard to say because we’ve had such great groups of lads and good players over the years,” he said to ‘It’s Called Soccer!’.
“We have gradually built the average-quality level of the squad up over time.
“I would probably prefer to say that this is the best ‘rounded’ team. We used to have a little bit more of a difference between the better players that we had in the squad and some of the other guys that we got promoted with and they would probably be honest themselves and say that being promoted might have been the only way they got into the Premier League, so [now] it does feel more like a Premier League squad.”
PICTURES: KEITH GILLARD
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