Leeds United opposition XI named entirely as Crystal Palace boss Glasner follows Bielsa example
Crystal Palace boss Oliver Glasner has taken a leaf out of Marcelo Bielsa's Leeds United book and named his starting XI for Saturday's Elland Road clash.
The Eagles drew 2-2 on Thursday night in Europa Conference League action with Finnish side KuPS and will line up against the Whites, who were without a midweek game, in a pre-Christmas Premier League fixture on Saturday night. With just 48 hours between the two games Glasner was clear in the build-up that he would not start any player at Elland Road who had started in Europe.
But in a light-hearted moment during his press conference to preview the Leeds game, Glasner cheerfully told a journalist he was mistaken when it came to a prediction of a start for 17-year-old Ben Casey, then named his team as Dean Henderson, Chris Richards, Maxence Lacroix, Marc Guehi, Nathaniel Clyne, Will Hughes, Adam Wharton, Tyrick Mitchell, Yeremy Pino, Jean-Philippe Mateta and ex-Leeds loanee Eddie Nketiah. Bielsa famously told journalists that a Leeds fan had written to him to ask him to stop naming his starting XI and giving opposition sides a heads up, after a number of examples where he did so.
"I know we have no injuries from today, that means we have our 16 on field players available, then we will pick two from our Under 18s plus the goalkeepers," said Glasner earlier in the press conference. "If you are really well prepared you should know our starting XI now. They will definitely start. Someone could be ill, everything can happen but if nothing happens the XI players who didn't start today will start at Leeds. It's easy."
The Palace boss described high-scoring Mateta's potential encounter with Leeds centre-back Jaka Bijol as a 'big battle' and added that he wants his side to continue their trend of defending crosses well, in light of Dominic Calvert-Lewin's recent goalscoring form.
"We are one of the teams defending crosses into the box, our centre-backs are very good at heading," he said. "We don't often give free headers in the box. Even when we conceded one to Halaand. It's the same with Haaland, it's more or less the same Calvert-Lewin has great timing, great feeling when to move. We want to avoid crosses and the headers in the box. But you have to accept you play a good opposition, a Premier League team and they maybe get a few. We conceded three - sometimes football is crazy - from seven finishes against Man City. We don't give them many opportunities but it looks like the opposition are quite efficient against us, it's time this changes."