Manchester United are among a number of Premier League clubs looking to sign a goalkeeper this summer.
And they could do a lot worse than Liverpool’s backup Caoimhin Kelleher.
While a switch to Old Trafford has proven challenging over the years, few can deny that United are in need of a new keeper – not even Ruben Amorim himself.
“We need to improve in all positions, including the goalkeeper,” Amorim said last month.
“If our team scores more goals and our forwards perform better, we will also defend better, but sometimes players underperform during a season.
“We’ll make our assessments at the end of the season.”
Constant conversations about transfers
Andre Onana has endured an error-strewn campaign at Old Trafford (Photo: Getty)
“There isn’t a football club, especially not a football club at that level and scale, that is sitting down in the summer time to start thinking about that,” Stephen Smith tells The i Paper. Smith is chief executive of Kitman Labs, a performance intelligence company that analyses data for a number of Premier League teams.
“Those conversations happen at like, Christmas time. There are constant conversations.”
Chelsea and Newcastle United have both been mooted as possible destinations, although at 26, Kelleher is on the old side for a BlueCo signing.
Nottingham Forest are said to have had a bid rejected in January, despite the fact that Matz Sels is on track to win the Golden Glove.
Aston Villa, Bournemouth, Leeds United and West Ham have all been linked, too.
United have other targets but they would do well to move for Kelleher before others do.
‘Definitely ready to be a No 1’
Kelleher would add a more commanding presence in the box than Onana (Photo: Reuters)
Kelleher has no shortage of high-profile admirers. In goalkeeping terms, there can be no greater backing than that of Peter Schmeichel.
“He has a great personality, understands his role, but he is a very ambitious young man, and he’s definitely ready to be a No 1,” the United great said in December.
Kelleher made his debut for Liverpool six years ago, but remained a virtually unused back-up to Alisson until last season.
Since the start of the 2023-24 campaign though, he has made 46 appearances, reaching a high point with a Champions League clean sheet in November against Real Madrid that included a Kylian Mbappe penalty save.
But it has not moved him up the pecking order. Alisson will remain first-choice with Mamardashvili due to serve as understudy at Anfield. It leaves Kelleher surplus to requirements, but he has already proved himself more than capable of performing at the highest level.
All transfers from Liverpool to Man Utd
August 1912: Tom Chorlton
September 1920: Tom Miller
February 1929: Tommy Reid
January 1938: Ted Savage
November 1938: Allenby Chilton
A ball-playing goalkeeper
That is something Onana has rarely done. Only three keepers have made more errors leading to goals in the Premier League this season and the Cameroonian has several more to his name in the Europa League, with both hands and feet.
Ironically, Onana was purportedly signed to help United pass out from the back under Erik ten Hag, and any replacement would need to provide that skillset as Amorim requires the same.
That makes Kelleher a good fit, since Liverpool play tend to short, and Kelleher has a 100 per cent completion rate on passes under 30 yards this season (sampled over 246 such passes).
But Smith insists that more granular data is required to prove whether the Irishman is merely playing safe with his distribution or has genuine accuracy in his armoury.
“What we would want to do is go and layer that [data] and ask ‘How long has it taken him to be able to make those passes?’” he says.
“So if it takes him 15 seconds with the ball in hand to be able to make those, maybe he’s a very safe passer.
“If he’s able to make that distribution within five seconds, he’s not a safe passer, he’s actually just really accurate.”
In 33 league appearances, Onana has just nine “high claims”. Kelleher is not far behind on six, but in a third of the games.
“Claiming is a really important aspect for goalkeepers as well,” Smith adds.
“How much do they dominate the space and the area around them? When crosses are coming in, are they sitting back on their line, watching what’s going on, waiting for a defender to do the work and clear the ball? Or are they getting out there and dominating that space?
“That’s becoming more and more important.”
All that being said, Kelleher moving to United would be a rare piece of business: no Liverpool player has moved to Old Trafford since Allenby Chilton in 1938.
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TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR STADIUM — See you next week, said Bodo/Glimt coach Kjetil Knutsen, rising from his seat in the media suite. He followed that with the menacing chuckle of a comic villain warning of trouble ahead.
Tottenham Hotspur opened the scoring after 44 seconds and, leading 3-0 early in the second half, were one more goal from killing the tie.
The fourth goal duly arrived with eight minutes of the first leg remaining, but it was not scored by Spurs, and a night that felt so good for so long ended with a sense of foreboding. The Spurs players felt it, Ange Postecoglou felt it, and most of all the stadium felt it, both sets of fans.
“You could see when Tottenham conceded they were really disappointed and lost energy,” Knutsen observed.
“We got a lot of energy because of it. If you ask me, we should have gone for a second. But we can take this energy forward. It’s totally different at home. We are not the favourites but we will really go for it. Hopefully we will have more scoring opportunities.”
"If we play the same way we did today, we'll get the result we need"
Ange Postecoglou was delighted with his side's performance against Bodø/Glimt
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) May 1, 2025
Bodo don’t need many. Their only shot on target found the net, a neat finish from skipper Ulrik Saltnes to burnish a lightening move.
It was reward for a second half in which they had 70 per cent possession characterised by swift, technical endeavour. Bodo are more accomplished than the folky impression projected, a metropolitan outfit without a metropolis.
As you might expect Postecoglou would not bite on the suggestion that Spurs had surrendered something vital by conceding so late. What could have been a four-goal advantage, what should have been a three-goal advantage, finished at a distinctly insecure two, no matter Spurs would have taken that at the start.
A week hence they face a team that has compiled a 70 per cent win record at home over the past three seasons of European competition, compared to a mere nine per cent success away. Clearly the artificial surface is a factor in that equation, which Postecoglou knows all about as a prior victim when managing Celtic.
“Look, it is on artificial grass, but it’s still a game of football,” Postecoglou said. “I’ve been there, I know the experience and what is important for us is we need to replicate what we did today.
“Irrespective of the surface, if we’re as disciplined and as organised as we were today, with and without the ball, it won’t matter what the surface is. I think it will make it really difficult for us to be stopped.”
The last to leave the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium were dressed in yellow. The Bodo devotees stayed behind to salute the players and cheer the subs warming down. Only when the last player disappeared did they retreat. This is a communal venture, and for those who made the trip as well as those who watched at home, this contest is clearly not over.
Bodo regrouped impressively after conceding a third from the spot with half an hour to play. To add to Postecoglou’s difficulties, he was forced to withdraw man-of-the-match James Maddison, scorer of a spectacular second, and Dominic Solanke, who stroked home the penalty, with knee and quadricep injuries respectively.
This has been the motif of the season for Postecoglou, whose patience as well as his position has been eroded seemingly beyond repair, a feature reflected in post-match conferences that have become increasingly terse.
“I thought our performance was everything it needed to be, really well organised and disciplined defensively and really calm going forward and created good opportunities, maintaining pressure,” he said, in a manner that sounded like a justification for keeping his job.
“Obviously they scored the goal late, which doesn’t I think reflect our dominance in the game, but if we repeat that performance next week, it’ll be enough for us to get through. I get that Bodo away is a difficult fixture, but I think in Europe this year we’ve been really good at managing whatever situation we’re in.”
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Doing the 92 is Daniel Storey’s odyssey to every English football league club in a single season.This is club 85/92.The best way to follow his journey and read all of the previous pieces is by subscribing here
It is 10 minutes after full-time and the Pirelli Stadium is bouncing. In front of each stand, on an incessant loop, a player or staff member raises an arm to the crowd three times and is roundly cheered. On that third raise, the loudest noise. Nobody seems to tire of the repetition.
“Bounce around if you’re staying up,” becomes the chant of choice. Some people have moved out of view, although it is mostly those of a Wigan Athletic persuasion or those in the Main Stand who have duties to fulfil. The rest will stay as long as they are allowed. For much of this season, supporters couldn’t wait for this season to end. Now they never want this night to.
Late-season midweek matches, rearranged from a previous date, can often cause pathos to hang a little in the air. The warmth of the sun and the daylight that refuses to cede until half-time give the impression of August, when you were hungry and excited for the nine months that were coming. In April and May, they are a reminder that the domestic football void is coming.
Still, an evening at Burton Albion is the perfect cure for any ennui. For most of the last 20 minutes of the match, as night finally takes over, the West Terrace has been chanting a Bob Marley chorus as they see their team home: “Singing don’t worry, about a thing. Every little thing is gonna be alright”. Well, it is now.
The one thing I’ll remember in May: Burton’s academy team did a lap of the pitch at half-time after winning a final. They were given a massive standing ovation by the travelling Wigan fans, which seemed to make their day. It’s the little things that bring you joy.
Burton Albion is a small, community-focused club with average crowds of around 3,500. I have been to this stadium for coffee mornings that address loneliness and afternoons that provide support for low-income families. Derby County is 14 miles away and Stoke City just over 25, so there is great competition for affection and family loyalty. Burton – only promoted to the Football League in 2009 – are comparative newbies.
That remarkable rise, four promotions in 15 years from the Northern Premier League to the Championship, will forever be the Burton legacy: Nigel Clough as manager, Ben Robinson as owner and chairman. It – and they – platformed everything else. But 2024-25 might run it close. This has been one of the most remarkable league seasons in recent English football history, described by the club themselves as a miracle.
On 18 January, Burton drew 1-1 at Crawley Town. That was their 25th league game of the season and they had taken just 15 points. In the Carabao Cup, they lost 4-0 at home. In the FA Cup, they were knocked out by non-league Tamworth. The season, as every fan said at the time, was done.
With four teams relegated from League One, Burton were 11 points plus goal difference from safety and had won twice in five months. Only four months of misery awaited them. On Tuesday, they secured their survival with a game to spare. That is why they are bouncing.
This story starts last summer, when Robinson decided that it was time for him to step aside after 40 years, over two spells, as owner and chairman. The most interested party was Nordic Football Group (NFG), a consortium based in Sweden that included billionaire H&M chairman Karl-Johan Persson alongside two NHL ice hockey players and 15 other individuals. They wanted an EFL club of roughly this size.
Some of the Robinson influence was retained: Ben’s daughter Fleur, who had been chief executive at Wrexham, moved to take on the same role at Burton. But everything changed in a summer like no other: new technical director (Bendik Hareide), new commercial director (Kevin Skabo), new chairman (Ole Jakob Valla Strandhagen), new deputy chairman (Tom Davidson). From May to August, Burton could not have looked more different.
NFG had a vision to rebuild Burton as the home of data-led recruitment and player development. They wanted to play exciting football that attracted new supporters and wanted to use the player trading model to increase budgets. None of that was controversial and none of it was unique to this club or these owners. That is the model now.
Gary Bowyer has overseen a stunnin transformation during his four months in charge (Photo: Getty)
But the sheer rate of overhaul was unprecedented; NFG tried to pull most of this off over the course of a single summer. Burton set a new British record for the number of first-team players signed in a single transfer window, 23: one goalkeeper, four forwards, eight defenders, 10 midfielders. Fifteen of those 23 players were aged 24 or under. Eighteen players left on permanent deals or expired contracts and four more when out on loan. They effectively had a new squad.
With Martin Paterson leaving the Brewers at the end of the previous season, a change of manager too. NFG appointed Mark Robinson, who had been working as head of Chelsea’s development squad. Robinson is an excellent coach, but has yet to fully prove himself at first-team level and was handed an extraordinary task in building a team and a culture in two months. He was sacked after 11 winless matches. His assistant Tom Hounsell took over as caretaker for 12 matches before he left, too.
At that point, Burton supporters are happy to admit, there were serious doubts about the ownership. Nobody was near the point of outright protest, but they believed that naivety had governed the course of their season and it would end in relegation and the lowest league position in a decade. For all the vision, the magic years would be over.
The protagonist of this miracle is Gary Bowyer, who by the time of that Crawley draw had been manager for several weeks and was beginning to turn around the mood. Bowyer is an interesting case: he had been out of work since leaving Dundee following promotion from the Scottish Championship in 2023. Before that he had had 48 matches as Salford City’s permanent manager and 48 more in charge of Bradford City.
Bowyer has delivered an astonishing return on Burton’s leap of faith. He is a personable guy who relies upon a series of non-negotiable demands and looks to play the ball through midfield quickly to a centre forward or wingers. On Tuesday evening, Bowyer stands on the touchline in a black tracksuit and his glasses, throwing a bottle of water up in the air and catching it again when a pass goes astray or a wrong decision is made.
Burton’s players also describe him as a brilliant man-manager, somebody who deserves this magical half-season more than most in the game. When a Burton winger wins a tackle on the touchline during the second half, Bowyer rubs his head profusely and gets a wide grin in response. The first miracle here was not staying up, but creating an environment, after so much change and so many defeats, that was conducive to survival even being possible.
As Bowyer says, the players deserve immense credit for that too: they are young and it would have been easy to give up – even only subconsciously – in the same way supporters must have. Momentum works both ways and losing is a hard habit to break. Young players have become men here in 2025 and their careers will likely be far better for it.
For all the mockery of the mistakes made in effecting far too much change last summer, several young players have stepped up: 21-year-old midfielder Charlie Webster; 22-year-old midfielder Kegs Chauke; 24-year-old full-back Udoka Godwin-Malife. The club deserves credit there. If we criticise the quantity, some quality came with it.
If Bowyer has resurrected his reputation at Burton, the on-pitch saviour is an even more extraordinary tale. Last season, Rumarn Burrell was playing for Cove Rangers in Scotland’s third tier having left Falkirk after a single season. Burrell had been at Grimsby Town, Middlesbrough and Bradford City in English football without ever starting a senior league game.
Burrell was one of the 23 new signings last summer, but struggled to make any impact at all. Before December, the striker had played 15 League One minutes across three appearances. Hounsell gave him a couple of starts due to injury absentees. Bowyer kept him in the team to see what might happen. Anything was worth a go.
And then something unexpected happened. On New Year’s Day, at home to Peterborough United, Burrell scored his first goal in English football. On 18 January, the day that marked Burton’s league table nadir, he scored again. Since Bowyer came in, Burrell has scored 11 league goals that have been worth 11 points to Burton. That gap on 18 January, as big as it got, was 11 points.
On Tuesday, it is Burrell’s name that they sing loudest of all the players and he who gets the biggest cheers post-game after Bowyer. He scores the opening goal that eradicates the nerves and stands in front of the West Terrace, a yellow flare surrounding him in smoke. All of this must seem like a dream to him. Now there are talks of EFL scouts casting a hopeful glance.
The change in this team is astonishing on every level. Since a pitiful home defeat to Northampton on 4 January, Burton lost six games and five of those were against some of League One’s richest: Birmingham, Bolton, Wrexham, Wycombe and Stockport. They finally climbed out of the bottom four on 12 April and have not been back there since. January became February, became March, became April. Desperation became dream, became hope, became joy.
Nothing long-term has been magically solved here. The questions that supporters were asking of the new owners at Christmas largely still apply, although there has been a good deal of humility and acceptance and public gratitude towards Bowyer for keeping them in League One.
They know that they got plenty wrong and concede that they are new arrivals to an environment where trying to run before you can walk normally leads to you falling over a few times first.
But, as the Pirelli finally stops bouncing and supporters begin to spread into a muggy late-April evening, saying goodbyes until August comes back around again, everybody is vowing to leave those questions for another day.
For a month or two, they can dwell upon one of the most ridiculous, and ridiculously good, half-seasons in the history of this club and of any club at their level. They would prefer it to be more settled next season, of course. But nobody is admitting that tonight.
Daniel Storey has set himself the goalof visiting all 92 grounds across the Premier League and EFL this season.You can follow his progress via our interactive map and find every article (so far) here
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Athletic Bilbao 0-3 Man Utd(Vivian red card 35′ | Casemiro 30′, Fernandes 37′ pen, 45′)
SAN MAMES — Bilbao’s famous Guggenheim museum houses some of the more bizarre contemporary art you can feast your eyes on.
Nothing Jackson Pollock could create was as curious as what Manchester United painted just down the Nervion River on a European night as great anything in this storied football club’s recent history.
In a competition United must win, for multiple reasons, travelling supporters feared the worst as their team faced their first real test of their Europea League credentials in Bilbao, with Athletic sitting fourth in La Liga and possessing the meanest defence in the Spanish top flight.
Athletic promised to make the atmosphere akin to Galatasaray’s “Welcome to Hell” night pre-match, with the deafening noise perfect for another United European disasterclass.
MAN UNITED TAKE THE LEAD!
Casemiro opens the scoring after some excellent footwork from Harry Maguire
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) May 1, 2025
Three first-half goals later, sealing a remarkable United victory and likely putting the entire semi-final tie to bed, ensured it was home supporters in the doldrums.
United’s miserable season remarkably remains on course for the happiest of endings.
The city of Bilbao was an awe-inspiring sight in the run-up to the match – a football romanticist’s utopia.
And that devotion oozed out of supporters once inside their stunning stadium, passion palpable wherever you looked.
Such a feeling lives within the players, too – how else do you explain how a team who can only choose players from a population size similar to Wales keep punching above their weight, year after year?
Man of the match: Casemiro
What a renaissance the Brazilian is having. Controlled the game and deserved his goal.
How quickly moods can change in football, however.
By half-time, supporters slumped in their seats, vacant looks adorning their faces, dreams of a first-ever European trophy in complete and utter ruins.
The hosts had the better of the early chances. Inaki Williams should have scored from a close range header, while Victor Lindelof came to United’s rescue with a timely block on the line.
Casemiro’s Indian summer knows no bounds, with his back-post finish on the half hour mark exactly what his warrior-like first-half performance warranted.
The veteran Brazilian, who we all thought was done, was running proceedings. The momentum completely shifted. Just as tempers in the stands were about to boil over.
After consulting the pitch-side monitor, Norwegian referee Espen Eskas earned his place on the Basque Country blacklist for all eternity as not only did he award United a penalty, but he brandished a red card in the direction of furious Bilbao defender Daniel Vivian.
The composure showed by Bruno Fernandes as he calmly stroked home the penalty, despite the ear-splitting whistles from the crowd, was astounding.
The fact, two minutes later, the United skipper put the tie to bed before half-time in the first leg, was just dumbfounding.
To add to the frivolity, Ruben Amorim’s side have now scored more goals in their seven Europa League games in 2025 than they have in their 15 Premier League games this calendar year.
In the second half, with Bilbao heads gone, United could sit back and see out an away win nobody saw coming, and do it in second gear, saving energy for next week’s return leg.
Casemiro could have added a fourth, but saw his second-half header come off the post. Now that really would have been silly.
Home supporters waved white pieces of people as more refereeing decisions went against their side. A dream final, in their own stadium, up in smoke. And it is this excuse of a United side who started the fire.
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The Football Association has offered transgender women “online talking therapy” after banning their participation in women’s football, or recommended becoming referees or coaches.
From 1 June, transgender women will not be able to participate in women’s football in England or Scotland, a decision the FA have made after the Supreme Court ruling that the legal definition of women is based on biological sex.
This ruling did not make any recommendations for transgender participation in sport, but the FA has followed the Scottish FA, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and England Netball in banning trans women from female-only forms of the game.
These changes are expected to impact around 20 registered transgender female players, compared to 2.5m registered female players.
In an email seen by The i Paper and sent to all registered transgender players, the FA wrote: “In the immediate aftermath of this news to help support you through this, we have partnered with Sporting Chance to provide you with free, fully confidential, online talking therapy with specially selected therapists.”
The number of free sessions is capped at six, and a non-specialised email address is provided.
There is also the suggestion of a “mixed football format currently being developed”, but these are largely in the pilot phase and location-dependent.
This means that trans women who want to continue playing will either have to join trans-specific teams like Truk United or join a men’s club, where they could face discrimination.
A further proposal is to become a coach or match official, in the footsteps of transgender referee and current Sutton United Women’s head coach Lucy Clark.
The email states: “You might be willing to consider moving your enjoyment of affiliated football into coaching or being a match official, we welcome that are there are routes to do this.”
In a statement, the FA said: “As the governing body of the national sport, our role is to make football accessible to as many people as possible, operating within the law and international football policy defined by Uefa and Fifa.
“Our current policy, which allows transgender women to participate in the women’s game, was based on this principle and supported by expert legal advice.
“This is a complex subject, and our position has always been that if there was a material change in law, science, or the operation of the policy in grassroots football then we would review it and change it if necessary.”
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It certainly caught the imagination of Rio Ferdinand. “I’d say to Pogba, ‘Come in and train with us, let me see what you’ve got’. I’d do that. I would have done that already. Come in and get fit.”
The dream, it seems, never dies. Indeed for some displaced souls it grows ever stronger, even in 32-year-olds and attendant sponsors.
As much as Ferdinand would like to put the Pogba band back together, the United where the fallen hero is most likely to land is, according to reports, the MLS version, DC, which would put him in the same zip code as Donald Trump. Pogba in the White House. You could sell tickets for that.
Pogba’s desire to go again is understandable following his disastrous return three years ago to Juve, where injury two weeks after arriving in Turin limited his playing time to just 161 minutes in his first season.
A four-year drug ban in 2023, reduced to 18 months, ended his second coming completely. Pogba eventually left Juventus last November and has been training since January, posting regular updates on Instagram, approved most prominently by his old United teammate Marcus Rashford.
Pogba is only 21 months younger than Kevin De Bruyne, the player who was welcomed to Manchester a year prior and who did for Manchester City what Pogba was supposed to do for United, anchor a decade of plunder at the top of the English game.
Peak De Bruyne is arguably the finest midfielder of the Premier League era with a claim to being the greatest in England’s top tier, period. Yet you could argue he did not have Pogba’s elite party moves, the quick feet, the powerful acceleration, the impressive physicality, which proves the gene pool is not the whole story in determining outcomes.
The great players make those around them better. Roy Keane, as well as being a very good player in his own right, evinced from his teammates the extra percentage points that made the difference in big games.
De Bruyne was even better than Keane and had the same impact on those around him. Watching Pogba it was hard to escape the sense that he was serving his own interests ahead of the team’s, that the great moments were a celebration not of the collective but of Pogba himself.
Paul Pogba is looking for a new club (Photo: Getty)
Pogba was essentially telling us how great he was rather than letting us decide for ourselves where he ranked. The social media posts offering the latest dance moves with Jesse Lingard might have been more palatable had they been commemorating a league title or two, less so for the Europa League or EFL Cup, both of which he won in his first season back at United.
Those two pots were, of course, seen as a measure of progress towards the ultimate prize. They turned out to be the entirety of his United collection.
Perhaps the most memorable Pogba contribution was at the Etihad during his second season, when his two-goal salvo fashioned an unlikely comeback victory.
It denied City the title against United but did not shift the centre of gravity. City went on to claim the first of six Premier League crowns under Pep Guardiola. United finished second and lost to Chelsea in the FA Cup final, which proved emblematic of the lost Pogba years, a period of expansive stumbling dotted by episodic eruptions.
It was clear by then that there would be no resurrection under Mourinho, who himself would be gone eight months later citing Pogba as a malign influence, or as he reportedly put it, a virus.
How different it was when Mourinho announced the signing of Pogba at his own unveiling as Manchester United manager in 2016. It must have seemed to both that together they would conjure the alchemy that would reset United in the post Fergie era.
It would, said Mourinho’s predecessor, Louis van Gaal, take three years to bring the Premier League back to Old Trafford. Well, he’d used up two of them for the return of an FA Cup.
It would be left to Mourinho, powered by Pogba, to make United great again. Nine years on United have spiralled even further away from the centre of things. Pogba is a yet more distant planet moving in an altogether different orbit.
Four Serie A titles and a World Cup victory with France is hardly failing. Neither is it all it might have been when Pogba returned to Old Trafford the most expensive player on earth at just 23.
“I have been training by myself, but never giving up and always chasing my dream and what I want to achieve,” Pogba announced on Instagram. “Still hungry for the comeback,” he said. “I will see you very soon.”
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Doing the 92 is Daniel Storey’s odyssey to every English football league club in a single season.This is club 84/92.The best way to follow his journey and read all of the previous pieces is by subscribing here
You know the joke by now: nature is healing because Crystal Palace are 12th in the Premier League. A wretched start to the season – one win in 13 league matches – tricked us into thinking a crisis may be building. Since the start of December, only six teams have taken more points. The midtable magnetism is strong with this one.
Palace’s long-term consistency is astonishing by any measure, unprecedented in the history of England’s top flight. For 11 completed league seasons in succession since promotion, they have finished between 10th and 15th position, taken between 41 and 49 points and won between 11 and 14 matches.
Within that, some variation. Palace have had nine different managers (three foreign, two former England managers, four other British coaches). They have overhauled the squad twice over. They have started seasons slowly and finished strongly and vice versa. It always seems to end in roughly the same result come June, before the cycle repeats.
The Crystal Palace experience does pass comment on the Premier League and the glass ceilings and floors that reinforce its structure for clubs without uber-rich owners or historic magnitude (and thus game-changing global marketing reach). Palace are one of four current Premier League clubs (with Southampton, Ipswich and Brentford) never to have spent more than £30m on a player. They have only sold two players for more than £30m too.
There will be Palace supporters who feel more strongly about that than others and will accuse those in charge of a lack of ambition. In the main, they are probably too young – or too recently interested – to remember two periods of administration in the last 30 years and the 2-2 draw at Hillsborough in 2010 that preserved their Championship status and may have stopped Palace from going under. Spending beyond their means has never really been an option since promotion; history is its own brake pedal.
There have been years when certainty and consistency skirted dangerously close to stagnancy. In three of four seasons between 2019 and 2023, Palace scored 30, 40 and 41 league goals at a rate of under one per game. Roy Hodgson was manager for the majority of that period. His deep connection to the club, and the affinity of key players for him, distracted from aesthetic monotony.
Eventually though, inertia began to creep in. Hodgson didn’t pick younger players as often as he could have. The team slipped into pragmatism as a defence mechanism rather than because it was what made the most sense. Without distraction, people began to wonder whether the horizon was closing in and their world getting smaller.
Hodgson’s presence was a matter of identity as much as ambition; that’s a crucial part of this story. Were Crystal Palace bobbing along in midtable without any discernible connection between supporters and the club, mutiny may have been more likely.
That connection does exist. Selhurst Park is a little grubby in its corners and likely requires significant redevelopment to meet the next age of spectator demand. One day that change will come, although it might well take a newer, richer owner.
The one thing I’ll remember in May: There are few players I enjoy watching more in the country than Eberechi Eze. The way he slows down and quickens up the match with the ball at his feet is transfixing.
But there is a south London soul here that is an antidote to any accusations of homogeneity within the Premier League machine. The Sainsbury’s in the stand, the Wilfried Zaha mural and the walk to Norwood Junction, entire streets pedestrianised by volume of people alone, are unique to this place and I love them all.
the Wilfried Zaha mural near Selhurst Park (Photo: Getty)
There is something pleasing about walking up a narrow set of concrete stairs to a press box which offers a view that contains roughly 40 per cent pitch and 60 per cent pillar, roof and wall. That’s easier to say when you come here three times a season rather than three times a month, but this is the charm.
Whether retaining that core spirit of the local area, in the squad and within the club’s ethos, has platformed the last 15 months is open to interpretation and your own soppy romanticism (guilty as charged). But it’s certainly true that, while Palace may indeed still be 12th in the league – make your jokes now – positivity has rarely abounded quite like this.
Last season, Palace scored 57 league goals; their highest ever total in the top flight. Related: Jean-Philippe Mateta became the first Crystal Palace player to score more than 15 goals in all competitions in a top-flight season since Andrew Johnson in 2004-05. Also related: Oliver Glasner had his first full season in charge and attempted to overhaul the playing style of his two predecessors Hodgson and Patrick Vieira.
Under Glasner, Palace have never been perfect. At the start of this season the loss of Michael Olise to Bayern Munich, the fatigue of Mateta after the Olympics, the injury concerns of Adam Wharton and the transfer saga surrounding Marc Guehi caused a loss of impetus that threatened to undo much of 2023-24’s best work.
Over the last five months, Palace have had arguably their best period since August to December 1990, when they briefly established themselves as the third best team in the country. It’s not just the league form, the run to the FA Cup final and the league double over Brighton, although all help. It’s that everybody seems to be having so much fun in the process.
Crystal Palace have reached the FA Cup final (Photo: Getty)
In central midfield, Wharton breaks up the play and pulls the strings. At right wing-back, Daniel Munoz is the right kind of chaos with his overlapping runs and touches in the penalty box. Mateta has become an elite striker in Selhurst. The verve of Eberechi Eze is possessed by few others in the country, treating Premier League pitches like south London cages. Ismaila Sarr’s growth has enabled Eze the time and space that makes Sarr’s own life more enjoyable.
Glasner is the leader of this movement and who knows how long they can keep hold of him. That is the lot of clubs of this size, the inevitable magnetism of the apex predators to your most valuable assets. The key, Glasner might say, is to enjoy everything while it lasts.
Crystal Palace teach us something about football fandom in general, particularly in an age where competition has been eroded to the point that your realistic ambition can become blunt. Football is an experience. If the eventual destination has become predictable, you have to sell the journey.
More than ever before, that is the sweet spot that Palace have now found. For too long everything was smothered in a blanket of certainty, to the point that safety itself became dangerous. Now there is fun in the unexpected, whether that be Eze taking on a defender or a team losing 5-0 one week and then thrashing Aston Villa at Wembley another.
It turns out that that is enough. There are ways to finish 12th and ways to be consistent that leave you dreaming rather than desperate to ignore the reality. Crystal Palace will step out at Wembley on 17 May with the chance to win their first ever major honour. When was the last time that they had a manager to believe in and a team to delight in watching like this? See how quickly you can fall head over heels in love again.
Daniel Storey has set himself the goalof visiting all 92 grounds across the Premier League and EFL this season.You can follow his progress via our interactive map and find every article (so far) here
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