Oliver Glasner has said Crystal Palace must sign attacking reinforcements in January after their wasteful performance against Strasbourg in the Conference League.
Palace were left to rue a number of missed opportunities as Strasbourg produced a stirring second half comeback to beat the Eagles 2-1 at the Stade de la Meinau.
Glasner’s men have now lost two of their opening four Conference League games, and the Austrian was left frustrated by his side’s lack of cutting edge as they twice hit the woodwork from an open goal while Yeremy Pino missed a guilt-edged opportunity moments before Strasbourg’s winning goal.
Palace’s profligacy in front of goal has become a theme of their season, according to Glasner, and he admitted post-match that the club would need to sign another attacker when the January transfer window opens.
“The situation where we have all these chances, we are missing. We could talk about six, seven, eight games. A few of them we won, Liverpool. We can turn it around, but we can’t always rely on keeping a clean sheet,” Glasner said.
“The game was exactly how we expected it. We knew that they take high risk in the build up. If you have two of these chances, winning the ball, then just have to pass into the empty goal then you should take it. If you don’t take it you don’t deserve to win.”
Following the departure of Eberechi Eze to Arsenal, Palace brought in Pino and Nigerian forward Christantus Uche to bolster their attacking ranks.
However, while Pino has begun to find his feet after a slow start to life in England, Uche has struggled for minutes and has yet to start a league game for Palace this season.
The 22-year-old, a Deadline Day arrival from Getafe, joined Palace on loan with an obligation to buy if he makes ten Premier League starts.
That option, though, appears unlikely to be triggered, with Uche seemingly out of favour under Glasner.
Glasner has previously admitted that the pace at which Palace conducted their transfer business in the summer has left players catching up to adapt to the English game, and he now believes the club will need to go back into the market in January to add depth in attack.
“It happens too often, maybe it’s part of our development. I would really have liked to avoid this defeat, but nobody misses on purpose. I haven’t played an international (European) game with as many big chances as we had today, which makes it even worse,” Glasner continued.
“We have to support the players. This is what we will do. It’s the only thing we will do, support them, encourage them, stay positive. The second thing [to improve in attack] is to buy a player in January.”
