Oliver Glasner walked back into Selhurst Park on Sunday to a warm ovation and a reminder of everything he built there. He left with nothing but an admission that he had no idea how it had gone so wrong. Crystal Palace came from behind to beat Nottingham Forest 3-1, condemning Glasner to defeat on his first return to the ground where he won an FA Cup, a Community Shield and a maiden European trophy in little more than a year in charge.
It was Palace’s first home Premier League win of the season under new head coach Pierre Sage, and it could hardly have been delivered against a more pointed opponent. Forest took an early lead through Dan Ndoye, but goals from Daichi Kamada, Jefferson Lerma and Yeremy Pino turned the afternoon on its head and left Glasner searching for answers he simply did not have.
Ndoye’s Early Strike Set Up a Pulsating Afternoon
Forest could not have asked for a better start. Anan Khalaili’s header was cut out inside the first three minutes, the loose ball fell kindly for Ndoye, and the Swiss winger finished calmly to send the away end into raptures. For a spell it looked as though Glasner’s reunion with Selhurst Park might end with a thoroughly deserved victory. Forest were the better side for long periods of the first half, carving out chances that a less generous finishing day would have turned into a more comfortable lead.
Palace needed something before the break and got it twice. Daichi Kamada levelled in the 41st minute, turning home a Quinten Timber backheel after VAR confirmed the goal stood, and then, deep into stoppage time, Jefferson Lerma scrambled home from an Adam Wharton delivery to put the home side ahead at the interval. It was a brutal swing for Forest to absorb, having led for the best part of 45 minutes and finding themselves behind by the time the whistle went for half time.
Pino Puts the Game Out of Reach
Palace did not let up after the break. Yeremy Pino made it 3-1 just before the hour mark, and although Forest pushed for a way back, with Daniel Munoz heading a late corner wide at the other end and Ismaila Sarr going down in the Palace box in injury time without a penalty given, the game was already beyond them. Murillo was booked for his protests at that non-award, but it was a minor footnote on an afternoon that belonged entirely to Sage’s side.
Glasner did not try to dress up what had happened. “Today, I have no explanation,” he said afterwards, calling it, in the same breath, the best performance his Forest side had produced all season. “The players, the quality of them is so high and I see this every single day. My explanation is it’s just me who is to blame for it.” He added that he could not point to fatigue or a lack of effort from his players, and admitted plainly: “I didn’t deserve to take the win today here at Selhurst.”
Old Wounds From Palace’s European Demotion
The context around this fixture ran deeper than one afternoon’s finishing. Forest’s presence in this season’s Premier League campaign owes something to Palace’s misfortune fifteen months earlier. In July 2025, UEFA demoted Palace from the Europa League to the Conference League after ruling they had breached multi-club ownership rules, a case tangled up with John Textor’s simultaneous links to both Palace and Lyon. Forest, who had finished seventh in the Premier League the previous season, were the beneficiaries, bumped up into the Europa League place Palace had lost.
Glasner’s Palace responded to that setback in the only way that mattered: by winning the Conference League itself the following May, a trophy Glasner later called a fitting way to close his chapter at the club before leaving that summer. The decision to take his next job at Forest, of all places, raised eyebrows given the history between the two clubs, and Sunday’s result will not have eased any of that tension. True to form, Sage was careful afterwards not to make it personal. “I never spoke about the former manager to the players in the preparation of this game,” he said. “The game is not against Oliver, the game is against Nottingham. It’s not about revenge, a confirmation or something like this for every individual player.”
Sage Settles In While Forest’s Chaos Continues
For Sage, appointed in the summer after leading Lens to a second place Ligue 1 finish and their first French Cup, this was a significant marker. Palace sit 12th in the table after the win, still searching for the kind of consistency that defined Glasner’s final season, and Sage was quick to temper any celebration. “We need to learn a lot, because we are ambitious and have a lot of games in October,” he said, with a Europa League trip to face Lyon, somewhat fittingly given the summer’s events, arriving on Thursday.
Forest’s afternoon only adds to a wretched run of managerial upheaval under owner Evangelos Marinakis. Glasner is Forest’s fifth head coach in little over a year, arriving after the sacking of Vitor Pereira, who had himself replaced Sean Dyche, and this defeat will do nothing to quiet the questions already being asked about how long patience will last this time. Sunday’s reunion was supposed to be a feel good story about a popular manager returning to the club he transformed. Instead it became another reminder that, for now, Forest’s problems have followed Glasner rather than been solved by him.
Palace, meanwhile, have the look of a club quietly building something new under Sage, even if the FA Cup winning, European trophy lifting era he replaced will take some matching. For a club with a trophy cabinet that was almost bare before Glasner arrived, simply holding onto what he left behind would already count as a job well done.
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