Glasner has not been so satisfied with Palace's business this summerplaceholder image
Glasner has not been so satisfied with Palace's business this summer | Getty Images
Crystal Palace boss Oliver Glasner has been speaking about Liverpool ahead of the Community Shield.
Crystal Palace are now closing in on Sunday’s Community Shield clash with Liverpool at Wembley Stadium. The Eagles won another appearance at Wembley by winning the FA Cup, and while some see this game as a glorified friendly, that’s not how Palace will see it, and at the very least, this will be as competitive a friendly as one can hope for ahead of the new season starting next weekend.
Liverpool, by contract, have been plenty busy, signing hundreds of millions to sign Florian Wirtz, Hugo Ekitike, Milos Kerkez and Jeremie Frimpong. The Reds are also said to maintain an interest in Newcastle United striker Alexander Isak, who is one of the best strikers in the world at this stage.
Naturally, it could take time for Arne Slot to bed in those new signings, but Palace will have the unenviable task of being a test subject of sorts for Slot and his Liverpool side as they gear up for what they expect will be a Premier League title defence of some sort.
Speaking toSky Sports Austria about that prospect, Palace boss Glasner said: “Liverpool have obviously invested heavily this year with Florian Wirz, Hugo Ekitike, Frimpong and Kerkez. I don’t know if they’ll bring in Isak now too.
“They’ve been playing at this level for years, so I have to say I was a bit surprised that they were so active, but of course it also shows their ambitions.
“I think you can always clearly see a club’s ambitions in the transfer market. And it seems that Liverpool FC isn’t satisfied with just winning the English league; I think they want to win the Champions League. And they obviously saw that we needed to add one or two things to the squad, and they made that very clear and explicit early on this summer.”
Glasner on UEFA debacle
Palace are now waiting for a decision from the Court of Arbitration for Sport to see if they can get bac into the Europa League after being demoted to the Conference League by UEFA.
That decision is due next week, but Glasner is not focusing on it given the big fish he has to fry ahead of the new season kicking off. He added in an interview with Sky Sports News: “We don’t have any influence on the decision from UEFA, we don’t have any influence on the decision from CAS, so it just makes no sense that we're thinking about it.
"We focus on what we have to do on the pitch, how to create this spirit in the group, this togetherness, this commitment, and this is what we are doing day by day. We’re waiting for the final decision, we’re still confident that the appeal will be successful and that we will play in the Europa League. But in the end, on August 11, we will know the final decision – then we will start to prepare for Europe.”
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