MATCHIQ | Club Intelligence / Match Intelligence | 10 October 2026
Oliver Glasner is returning to Selhurst Park with a fairly unusual advantage.
He knows the ground. He knows many of the players. He knows the system that helped Crystal Palace win three trophies.
He even has one of the wing-backs who helped make that system work — Daniel Muñoz — playing for him at Nottingham Forest.
You might think that gives Glasner a head start.
But there’s a problem with that assumption.
The Crystal Palace he left in May is not quite the Palace he will face on Sunday.
Pierre Sage has taken over. Some players have moved on. Others have been given different responsibilities. And although the broad formation remains familiar, Sage is not simply following somebody else’s instructions.
Glasner may know exactly how his old Palace worked. The harder question is whether that knowledge still applies to the team Palace are becoming.
Glasner left behind more than three trophies
Glasner’s time at Palace was a remarkable success.
He arrived in February 2024, with the club sitting 15th in the Premier League.
In 2025, Palace won the FA Cup, their first major trophy.
They added the Community Shield and then the UEFA Conference League, beating Rayo Vallecano 1–0 in Glasner’s final match in charge in May 2026.
Those achievements matter because they were not built around one exceptional afternoon.
Glasner established a recognisable way of playing.
Palace regularly used three central defenders, two wing-backs and two attacking players operating behind a centre-forward.
When they defended, the back three could protect the penalty area while the wing-backs moved deeper.
When they recovered possession, the same wing-backs could immediately help the team attack.
The two players behind the striker looked for spaces between opposition midfielders and defenders.
It was a structure that allowed Palace to be compact without becoming completely passive.
That last point is important.
Glasner did not simply give Palace an arrangement of players on a tactics board.
He developed habits.
Players became familiar with where their teammates would move, when to press and which spaces they needed to protect.
A coach who has spent more than two years developing those habits ought to understand them unusually well.
But those habits only provide an advantage if they remain relevant.
Sage has kept the shape, not necessarily the instructions
Pierre Sage’s appointment in June made sense from a football perspective.
At Lens, he had already worked successfully with a 3-4-2-1 formation.
He had also explained his preference for building attacks from the back, trying to move behind opposing defenders and pressing quickly after losing possession.
Those principles have obvious similarities to parts of Glasner’s approach.
Palace’s most recent Premier League starting XI, against Leeds, also used a 3-4-2-1.
So there is genuine structural continuity.
But there is a distinction worth making.
A 3-4-2-1 tells you roughly where players begin. It does not tell you everything they do once the ball moves.
Under one manager, a wing-back might stay deep until the team has established possession.
Under another, the same position might be expected to attack much earlier.
One coach might encourage a midfielder to drop towards the central defenders and help the team pass out.
Another might prefer that midfielder to remain higher, ready to collect a second ball.
Both teams can still appear as a 3-4-2-1 on a television graphic.
They might produce very different football.
The Premier League’s own introduction to Sage warned against treating his formation as an exact copy of Glasner’s system.
That warning matters here.
We have evidence of shared principles and a familiar base shape.
We do not have sufficient evidence to claim Sage has either preserved every important Glasner instruction or completely replaced them.
Those are the details Sunday’s match should help clarify.
Daniel Muñoz makes this reunion more interesting
One of the clearest changes is now wearing Nottingham Forest colours.
Daniel Muñoz joined Forest from Palace on 31 August.
He had been an important wing-back under Glasner and explained that reuniting with the Austrian manager influenced his decision.
This gives Forest something more tangible than a manager who remembers how his old team used to play.
They have a player who has performed within that system.
Muñoz understands Glasner’s expectations from direct experience.
He knows what it means to provide width, advance from a deeper starting position and recover when possession changes.
That may help Forest reproduce some of the combinations that made the old Palace dangerous.
But there is another side.
Palace have had to adjust without him.
Against Leeds, Sage selected Anan Khalaili in the right wing-back position.
That is not evidence that Khalaili will start against Forest.
It does show that the role is now being performed by somebody other than Muñoz.
Even if the formation looks familiar, the decisions made from that position may no longer be identical.
Glasner knows Muñoz exceptionally well.
That could be useful for Forest.
But he cannot assume the player on Palace’s right side will behave exactly as Muñoz once did.
This is where tactical familiarity can become misleading.
Knowing the old answer can make it tempting to prepare for a problem that has already changed.
The opening five matches tell us both teams are still learning
Neither club has begun the league season particularly well.
Palace have four points from five matches, with one victory, one draw and three defeats.
Forest have five points, having won once, drawn twice and lost twice.
Palace have also lost both of their opening home league matches under Sage.
That adds pressure to Sunday’s game, although it does not tell us whether Sage’s football is fundamentally flawed.
Five matches remain a limited sample, particularly when a new manager is introducing his ideas.
Forest’s results also deserve caution.
They drew 2–2 at Liverpool, a game MATCHIQ previously examined because Liverpool had so much possession but still allowed Forest to create dangerous chances.
That was evidence that Glasner’s team could threaten an opponent without dominating the ball.
It was not proof that Forest’s whole system had settled.
Their most recent league match ended in a 1–0 home defeat to newly promoted Coventry City.
The contrast matters.
Forest have shown that they can create serious problems for a strong opponent.
They have also shown that the quality of those performances is not yet consistent.
Glasner may understand Palace’s defensive habits, but his own players still have to turn that information into useful actions.
He cannot win the match simply by knowing where he would have told Palace’s defenders to stand last season.
The actual tactical test is what happens after the first move
Imagine Forest pressing Palace’s defence.
Glasner may know which Palace players were previously comfortable receiving the ball under pressure.
He may also remember where the next pass usually went when one side of the pitch became crowded.
That knowledge could help Forest position their forwards.
But if Sage has changed the passing responsibilities, the familiar trap might not work.
Palace could bring a midfielder deeper, use a wing-back differently or play beyond the pressure earlier than Glasner expects.
Then Forest would have to adjust.
The opposite situation is just as interesting.
Suppose Muñoz advances on Forest’s right side.
Palace’s players know him well.
They may understand how aggressively he likes to move forward and what spaces can appear behind him.
But recognising the space is only the beginning.
Can Palace move the ball into it quickly enough?
Can their forwards make the right runs?
Can they exploit it without leaving themselves exposed somewhere else?
Neither side wins a tactical advantage merely by possessing information.
The advantage belongs to whoever turns that information into the better decision at the right moment.
That is a football problem, not a nostalgia problem.
The strongest counterargument: Glasner’s knowledge really could matter
There is a reasonable case for Forest having a genuine advantage.
Glasner spent more than two years working with several Palace players.
He has seen them train, make mistakes, respond to pressure and adapt to opponents.
Public match footage cannot provide a complete substitute for that experience.
He may understand certain players’ preferences more deeply than most opposing coaches.
He also knows Selhurst Park and the demands of Palace’s supporters.
Muñoz offers an additional connection to the previous system.
If Sage has retained substantial parts of the old structure, Glasner’s familiarity could help Forest identify where to press, which passing options to close and how to attack the spaces around the wing-backs.
We should not dismiss that possibility.
But the same argument works in reverse.
Palace’s players know Glasner.
They have spent years learning how his teams press, where his wing-backs move and how he tries to create chances.
Sage can study Forest’s recent matches and combine that information with his squad’s direct experience.
This is not a contest in which only one side possesses inside knowledge.
And knowledge alone cannot account for injuries, individual errors, execution or an opponent’s unexpected decision.
The advantage is plausible.
It is not yet established.
MATCHIQ Verdict: The Old System Is Familiar. The Current Teams Are Not.
Glasner built an extraordinary period of success at Crystal Palace.
He knows many of the players and tactical principles better than almost anybody.
His Forest side also have Muñoz, who already understands some of those demands from experience.
That is meaningful.
But Sage has inherited the job of taking Palace forward, not preserving Glasner’s instructions forever.
The visible similarities in formation should not hide possible differences in possession, pressing and individual responsibilities.
Meanwhile, Forest have only five points from five league games. Their own execution is still being developed.
MATCHIQ’s judgment is that Glasner has an information advantage about Palace’s past, but there is not yet enough evidence to say he has a match-winning tactical advantage over Sage’s present team.
Confidence: Medium.
The managerial changes, competition results, league records, Muñoz transfer and broad tactical frameworks are well documented.
The size of any advantage created by Glasner’s familiarity remains an inference that Sunday’s decisions must test.
Next Watchpoint
The first evidence will come from the confirmed team sheets.
Are Palace still using the same broad defensive shape? How are the wing-back roles assigned? Does Forest’s selection support Glasner’s usual approach?
During the match, the more important observations will be the responses.
When Forest press Palace’s defenders, where does Sage direct the next pass?
When Muñoz moves forward, who protects the space behind him?
If one manager’s first plan stops working, what does he change?
And do those adjustments actually create better opportunities?
A Forest victory would not automatically prove Glasner knew how to beat his old side.
A Palace victory would not automatically prove Sage had reinvented the system.
The stronger evidence will come from how the teams behave and adapt.
Glasner knows what he built at Palace. Sunday’s question is whether Sage has already built enough of something different.
Sources and Continuity
Premier League — Glasner confirms planned Crystal Palace departure, 16 January 2026
Premier League — Palace win the Conference League in Glasner’s final match
Crystal Palace FC — Pierre Sage appointed manager, 15 June 2026
Premier League — Oliver Glasner appointed Nottingham Forest manager
Premier League — Pierre Sage’s tactical background at Lens
Premier League — Glasner’s first Forest starting XI
Reuters — Daniel Muñoz on reuniting with Glasner at Forest
Premier League — Crystal Palace team and match information
Premier League — Matchweek 6 preview
Previous MATCHIQ analysis: Liverpool 2–2 Nottingham Forest: 69% Possession, But Not Match Control
Evidence checked on 10 October 2026, before Crystal Palace vs Nottingham Forest. Starting line-ups, tactical adjustments and the result remain unconfirmed.