Five games into the new Oliver Glasner era at Crystal Palace, the team’s form has improved even though it may not have provided the excitement that many had hoped for.
Although it’s not ideal, the Austrian manager’s team has managed to secure six points out of a possible fifteen, which is an improvement over the three points they managed to secure in Roy Hodgson’s final five games at the club.
The former Eintracht Frankfurt manager seems capable of leading Palace to new heights, but Odsonne Edouard is one player who most likely won’t be present for the journey.
This season’s stats for Odsonne Edouard
While Edouard’s summer 2021 departure from Scottish Giants Celtic cost the Eagles about £14 million, there was some optimism that he would be able to carve out a fantastic career in English football given his record of 87 goals and 38 assists in 179 games with the Hoops.
Regretfully, the Frenchman hasn’t exactly seemed like he was going to replicate his Celtic goalscoring form south of the line, albeit occasionally appearing excellent for the south Londoners during the last 2.5 years.
The 26-year-old’s season has been especially poor this year. Throughout the season, he has only made 25 appearances (19 of which have been starts), scoring seven goals and dishing out no assists.
This indicates that he is involving himself in a goal every 3.5 games on average, which is a lot worse than Jean-Philippe Mateta’s 2.1 game average.
Furthermore, Mateta has started the last five games, indicating that Glasner considers him to be his best striker. The former Celtic player, on the other hand, has only started two of the last five games, and those two were as an offensive midfielder.
The striker’s tenure at Selhurst Park appears to be coming to an end, especially considering that a gifted young player from the academy who has excelled at the youth level is currently on loan and may challenge for a spot in the starting lineup the next season.
The young player in question is Ademola Ola-Adebomi, a 20-year-old centre forward who joined Palace’s academy in 2012 at the age of eight. Since then, he has worked his way up through the youth teams and even made it to the bench for the first team’s September League Cup match at Old Trafford.
According to U23 scout Antonio Mango, the “exceptional” academy potential was unmatched at the juvenile level. In 65 appearances for the U18 and U21 teams, he scored 34 goals and provided six assists, averaging a goal every 1.6 games.
He was granted permission to try himself in the senior game on loan due to his outstanding play, and in January of this year, he signed a short-term contract with Burton Albion of League One. He has made 11 appearances, but only six of those have been starts. He has one goal and two assists in those games.
Considering his youth-level exploits, it may not be quite the comeback he had hoped for, but a goal every 202 minutes in his senior football debut is still a noteworthy accomplishment.
Additionally, he has had an effect on Martin Paterson, the manager of Burton, who called the forward “a real threat in the area,” “technically really good,” and one of Palace’s “top talents.”
In the end, even if Ola-Adebomi isn’t expected to start in Mateta’s place in Glasner’s starting lineup the next season, he has plenty of opportunity to replace Edouard as the team’s backup striker, especially after a few more months with Burton.
