Domestic cup football is back on the agenda for Crystal Palace this week, with the Eagles heading to last season’s beaten finalists Liverpool in a fourth-round Carabao Cup tie on Wednesday (29th October, 19:45 GMT).
The knockout game, which will go straight to a penalty shootout if level after 90 minutes, is part of a busy run of games for the Eagles, with Palace playing six times in the space of just 16 days.
Ahead of the game at Anfield, Palace manager Oliver Glasner addressed the assembled media on Tuesday afternoon.
Read on below for the key quotes!
We have taken one point (in the Premier League) which is a fact. Not the best output, but the performances were okay I think. We didn't drop our performances compared with the games before Liverpool.
We watched the Arsenal game back and we gave them two finishes, two shots from open play over 100 minutes at the Emirates Stadium.
Yes, they were better than we were in set plays. That's why they won the game. They could have scored two more goals off set plays, but in open play we defended excellently.
I think defensively it was one of our best performances. It was not so easy to create chances, but we are not the first team to experience this against Arsenal.
Against Bournemouth, it was a fantastic Premier League game. But even at Everton, most parts of the game, we gave a very good performance.
That's why we are not hiding at the moment. We will follow our pathway and we believe in what we're doing. The players are, again, such a great group of people. So it's all on track.
They have a few question marks. We don't know which team they are playing. Usually, in the League Cup, they have rotated quite a lot.
They have a few doubts with injuries. But the way they are playing won't really change. Of course, we watched their game against Brentford back, because they are our next two opponents.
It’s a great team. I don’t know why (they have recently lost form) it’s not my job to analyse what happens at Liverpool. We are playing them now for the third time this season.
I think we did quite well in the first two games. So we rely on what we can do and on what we want to do.
We can't copy anybody else. And we don't want to copy anybody else, that’s how we’ll approach this game.
We go there tomorrow and we go there to win the game
—Oliver Glasner
It’s football – and like life itself, football never stops. You always need to progress and you have to look at where you can develop.
Sometimes you could see [in recent years] the game getting quicker and quicker, with the players getting more and more athletic. Then sometimes the game moves a little bit back to its roots.
And I have to blame myself that we didn’t consider using it even more in the last couple of years, because it’s a great opportunity to get the ball into the box. And everybody knows that 90% of goals are scored in this area.
And there is no offside. You can have quite a few numbers in there, so it’s just logical that you would try and get the ball into these areas.
We will try. Again, we have players who are fit, because of the medical department and the fitness coaching.
And the players are doing such a great job that they are always available – it’s only the long-term injuries really – and again, I hope Chris [Richards’ injury] is nothing serious.
So let’s see. I don’t know, but we will go to win. We don’t go to Liverpool and say ‘it’s a friendly game,’ because if we did, we would send our under-21 team. It doesn’t make sense, with all the travel involved, not to play our best.
We go there tomorrow and we go there to win the game and to play in the best possible way.
This is just how we started working together since day number one [when Glasner joined] and this is how we will continue until day number whatever.
Liverpool v Crystal Palace
