Oliver Glasner has dismissed suggestions that he threatened to resign as Crystal Palace manager if the club flogged Marc Guehi to Liverpool. The Reds had struck a £35m agreement for the England international, who even began undergoing a medical, only for the Eagles to scrap the deal on deadline day after failing to secure a replacement.
Reports suggested that Glasner had played a pivotal role in Palace’s about-turn, threatening to walk away from his position if his skipper was offloaded despite chairman Steve Parish publicly acknowledging that he would rather sell the out-of-contract defender than lose him for nothing at the season’s end. However, the Austrian has rejected such claims as he disclosed what he actually told Parish that resulted in Guehi remaining at the club.
“I think it’s the last time I want to talk about it,” he said on Friday. “Especially the Crystal Palace fans deserve to hear how it really was. So many things were written and told.
“Number one, I never threatened to leave the club. Never. And the second thing is, after many discussions, the chairman asked me: ‘Oliver, do you think we can manage the season when we sell Marc?’
“I said: ‘Steve, honestly, I think we can’t manage it in the short term if we buy a 19-year-old fantastic player with about 1,000 minutes in Ligue 1 and selling our captain with about 15,000 minutes in the Premier League.
“I think we can’t manage it short term and if we then have three centre-backs, with our schedule, if we have an injury in the back three, I think it’s very, very risky.
“If you want this scenario for Crystal Palace and you are fine with it, sell Marc. If you don’t want to have this for Crystal Palace, then we have to keep him’. And then he decided we keep him so big credit to the chairman. I didn’t have to threaten anybody.
“There were no bad tensions between the chairman and myself. It was just a discussion about sports.
“And he decided… big credit… he decided against the money and for the sporting prospective of Crystal Palace. So again, big credit to the chairman.”
Glasner also heaped praise on Guehi for his response since witnessing his switch to Liverpool fall through, disclosing that he had held discussions with the England star as he confirmed he will continue as Palace skipper.
“The same big credit to Marc, who handled it very well,” he said. “So we talked on deadline day, we talked the day after deadline day when he was already in the England camp.
“And we were always having very honest talks with him, the same as before. He arrived then and everybody could see how he played for England, that he’s 100 per cent focused, the same here.
“It was written he steps back as captain. Nothing true. He will be our captain as long as he’s here because he’s just such a great player and such a great personality.
“So much noise, and at the end, the truth is what I told you now.
“And I think that’s what Crystal Palace fans deserve to know it. This is how it is.”
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Content Source: www.express.co.uk