Considering the severity of the injury he suffered, it is borderline miraculous that Jean-Philippe Mateta may only end up missing one game for Crystal Palace.
The 27-year-old has been given the all-clear to feature in the Eagles’s FA Cup quarter-final against Fulham on Saturday, four weeks since requiring 25 stitches to patch up his left ear, sliced badly by the bottom of Liam Roberts’ studs.
Mateta’s lay-off may have been less disruptive than was first feared as he lay on the Selhurst Park pitch with an oxygen mask strapped around his face, but Palace missed his goal threat and presence in their 1-0 win over Ipswich Town before the international break.
The upward arc of Mateta’s career began roughly 13 months ago, but as with all good origin stories, there is speculation over what may have prompted it.
“Informally, a lot of Palace fans talk about him shaving his head as the turning point,” Dan Cook, host of the HLTCO podcast, tells The i Paper.
Teammates have also noticed a change since the clippers came out. “The day he came in with no hair was the best day in Palace’s history!” said Chris Richards to Sky Sports.
Debate over whether crew cuts have made the difference will no doubt continue, but one indisputable factor behind Mateta’s staggering improvement is that it has coincided with Oliver Glasner’s spell in charge.
Mateta’s all-round game has become more refined over the past 12 months but as with every striker, he is judged by goals more than anything else. And in that regard, the shift in output has been phenomenal.
Pre-Glasner, Mateta scored 15 goals in 93 games; post-Glasner, he has 28 in 46.
Only four players – Erling Haaland, Alexander Isak, Mo Salah and Cole Palmer – have outscored Mateta in the Premier League since Glasner’s first game on 24 February 2024.
Glasner has not only unlocked a level of performance in Mateta that neither of his predecessors Roy Hodgson or Patrick Vieira could, but also that Palace fans felt he was incapable of.
“It’s quite remarkable to see the change,” Cook says.
“I remember the summer before last there was talk of us signing Kelechi Iheanacho [the former Leicester forward currently at Sevilla] and letting JP go and I said I’d probably do that.
“No-one pushed back on that opinion at the time because I think every Palace fan felt the same way.”
Mateta is the latest striker to have reaped the rewards from working with Glasner and his coaching staff.
Randal Kolo Muani scored a career-best 23 goals in 42 games in a single season under the Austrian at Eintracht Frankfurt, a return that earned him a surprise call-up for France’s 2022 World Cup squad and an €85m (£70m) switch to PSG in a whirlwind 12 months.
Wout Weghorst netted 45 goals for Wolfsburg across two seasons with Glasner, including 20 in the 2020-21 Bundesliga. Only Robert Lewandowski, Andre Silva and Haaland bettered the Dutchman’s tally in the division that year.
Rene Gartler is another forward who racked up the goals in a Glasner-led team. Now a sporting director at Rapid Vienna, Gartler played for his compatriot for three years at LASK Linz.
He scored 47 times in 91 games, including 21 in the league in 2017-18 to fire LASK back into the Austrian Bundesliga after seven years away.
“From the physical side, it was not so easy,” Gartler tells The i Paper. “I wasn’t 22, I was 29 or 30. I was in good shape but the intensity out of possession was new to me. We ran after the ball like lions!”
“But it was not only for me, it was new for the whole team because we had a lot of new players and needed a little bit of time to adapt. But after two or three months, the team was very good in this style of play and we adapted very fast.
“In the end, I was the guy who profited from this intensity out of possession as we created a lot of chances. As a striker, it’s always good to be in a team that creates a lot of chances!”
Mateta and the rest of the Palace squad have undergone a similar physical transformation under Glasner.
“As a striker, he’s definitely got stronger and fitter,” Cook says.
“It’s one of the worst kept secrets that under Roy that we didn’t have the base level fitness to actually press for 90 minutes and that’s something that Glasner and his coaches were very keen to up after they came in.
“JP can run for 90 minutes. It used to be in the first few weeks of Glasner being here that he was flagging after 75 minutes but now he is really relishing that role as he knows he can do it for 90.”
Weghorst is a classic target man. Kolo Muani likes to stretch defences. Gartler was a technical penalty box forward. Mateta does a bit of everything.
That different types of number nines have flourished under Glasner suggests that the system, rather than the individual, is the key.
“He always wanted us to not play complicated,” Gartler explains.
“It was very straight, very vertical, powerful. We were very fast at getting to the opponent’s box which creates danger.
“I think every team [he has] creates a lot of chances so maybe it doesn’t matter what type of striker he has. Every striker needs a team that creates chances and that’s the key to why strikers score under him.”
Mateta has particularly profited from Eberechi Eze’s guile and craft.
Eze has set up five of his 12 league goals this season which makes the pair the second most productive combination in the division behind Newcastle United’s Alexander Isak and Jacob Murphy (six goals).
5 – Eberechi Eze has assisted Jean-Philippe Mateta five times in the Premier League this season, the joint-most a @CPFC player has set up a specific teammate in a single campaign (Michael Olise 5 for Eze in 2022-23). Wavelength. #CRYAVL pic.twitter.com/eXfPJPTzC6
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) February 25, 2025
“What I would say is that [Palace’s soon-to-be ex-sporting director] Dougie Freedman’s eye for a player is unmatched, really, in terms of value for money and spotting players that can work if you give them the right sort of tools,” Cook says. “And quite clearly he saw that with JP.”
Once a frequent source of frustration and confusion among the Palace faithful, Mateta is now universally adored. Goals will do that, of course.
In its own grizzly way, the injury adds another chapter to the legend. Expect to see a few Palace fans wearing sprawling white plasters over their ears at Craven Cottage in homage to their returning hero, who donned one in a recent Sky Sports interview to protect his healing ear.
“Whatever the next generation of Barclaysman is, that’s Jean-Philippe Mateta,” Cook wrote on X.
Although clubs tend to invest in potential nowadays, Mateta, who will turn 28 in June, is hitting his peak and may be a man in demand in the summer.
That is if Palace even countenance selling him. Supporters will greet their returning hero with even more reverence than usual when he returns to action.
The “BOOM” that follows Mateta’s next celebration might be heard .
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