Crystal Palace defender Chris Richards has suffered an injury just a week before the Premier League final day, and he faces a race against time to be ready for Arsenal on Sunday.
Oliver Glasner insisted ahead of Crystal Palace’s last match against Brentford that he was going to take their final two Premier League fixtures very seriously, opting not to rest players for their Europa Conference League final on May 27th.
But the Palace manager saw the potential negative consequences of that approach at the weekend, as defender Chris Richards was forced off early in the Brentford game with an injury.
“He twisted his ankle,” Glasner said. “It is quite swollen, so we will have to assess it further. But hopefully he can return midweek.”
Palace don’t have a midweek fixture, so Glasner presumably means that he’s hoping to get Richards back in training in midweek to make him available for their match at the weekend against Arsenal.
The Eagles then have the Europa Conference League final the following Wednesday, which may push Glasner to err on the side of caution this Sunday. But the manager himself continues to insist he’ll be going strong against the Gunners.
“We will play the strongest team against Arsenal,” Glasner insisted. “We do it for us, we don’t do it for City and we don’t do it for Arsenal. We do it for Crystal Palace and we do it for our fans.
“It’s the last game at Selhurst, they deserve to see a top performance. This is what we want to show against Arsenal. Of course, we will manage the minutes a little bit, because we have to. But that doesn’t change anything.”
Palace midfielder Adam Wharton was a little less emphatic in his own response to questions about the Arsenal game, saying: “We’re not deciding the title next week. There have been 37 games this season. We have another game a few days after [the Conference League final].
“We’re not looking at trying to beat them so that they don’t win. That is none of our concern.
“We are focusing on ourselves and making sure we’re in the right position for the following Wednesday.”
We’ll only know how seriously Palace really plan to take the Arsenal game when it happens.
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