Oliver Glasner's Crystal Palace admission speaks volumes ahead of Conference League test

Crystal Palace manager Oliver Glasner urged his players to be “humble” as they seek to secure passage to the league phase of the Conference League against Fredrikstad on Thursday.

Palace lead 1-0 from the first leg of their play-off tie at Selhurst Park a week ago when Jean-Philippe Mateta scored the club’s first-ever goal in a major European competition.

The team are strong favourites to complete the job in the second leg in Norway but Glasner cautioned against buying into suggestions the club could mark its maiden European campaign by lifting the trophy in May.

“I think it would be arrogant to think when you play a competition for the first time to talk about winning it,” he said. “It’s the first time Palace plays outside England a competitive game, so it’s important to stay humble and this is what we are doing as a team. We are going step by step.

“Every team gets a chance and Fredrikstad had one chance at the end. We defended their set plays very well and we didn’t give them transitions, so I think we did very well. In the final third we created good chances, were patient against their deep block.

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“When you have two legs, you can learn from the first game, and this is what we want to show (on Thursday).”

The game in the southern Norwegian city against last season’s domestic cup winners will be played on an artificial pitch at the Fredrikstad Stadion, potentially posing a banana skin for Palace.

There are currently no artificial surfaces in use in the top four divisions in England following a ban introduced by the EFL in 1995, whilst Premier League clubs typically employ undersoil heating and drainage systems to ensure matches can safely be played in adverse weather conditions.

However, the use of different surfaces is common in northern Europe. Chelsea defeated Swedish side Djurgarden 4-1 on a plastic pitch in the first leg of last season’s Conference League semi-final.

“It’s why we’re training (at the stadium),” said Glasner. “We have to get used to it. We have to try different boots. Many players haven’t played on AstroTurf for many years.

“For me as an Austrian I’m used to it, but in England, in Germany, you are not used to it. It’s a bit quicker, you have to pass into the space, into the feet.

“You hear it quite often from me: we have to accept it and do the best from it and have the clear goal to win the game tomorrow. There’s no tactical side to playing a little bit more passive and waiting, so we are here to win the game.

“We respect Fredrikstad and they showed how compact they can play and how difficult it is to score against them, but at home we had plenty of chances to score more than one goal, and this is what we will try to do.”

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