Ahead of his first game in charge of Crystal Palace, Oliver Glasner has some seriously big decisions to make.
Crystal Palace‘s new manager, Oliver Glasner, was only announced as the boss on Monday, succeeding Roy Hodgson.
This represents a fresh start for Palace and there’s a handful of players who will be hoping to change their individual fortunes and take a more prominent role in the team.
One of these will be Naouirou Ahamada who was spotted with Glasner taking particular interest in him in training on Thursday.
Another will be Matheus Franca who absolutely needs to be handed a chance after a season which saw Hodgson refuse to do so.
Since arriving for a whopping £26m transfer fee, Franca has been used so sparingly that it’s hard to believe Hodgson wanted him in the first place.
He has played just 293 minutes for the Palace first team this season which is hardly enough time for him to adapt to the league or make an impact of his own.
But despite his lack of minutes, he’s looked exciting in his cameos and looks like he absolutely has the potential to be a player for Palace.
For Glasner this weekend, he has the perfect chance to start Franca given the fact that both Eberechi Eze and Michael Olise are still absent.
So in either of the positions which were occupied by Odsonne Edouard or Jordan Ayew on Monday night, Franca deserves a chance to show he’s worthy of the position.
There’s no guarantee he will catch fire and rip the league apart, but he could hardly do worse than some of his more senior teammates have done this season.
A player like Franca who was so highly rated in Brazil with bags of talent cannot continue to rot on the bench at Selhurst Park.
In an ideal world, Franca gets his chance and takes it, but if not, Glasner must find that out sooner or later so he can loan him next season if needs be.
Not to mention he’s almost tailor-made to fit into that role of inverted winger that Palace could quickly adopt under Glasner.
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