Crystal Palace manager Oliver Glasner was pleased with the goalscoring display of Christantus Uche, despite his side’s 2-2 draw against KuPS Kuopio on Thursday, SportPremi reports.
The Nigerian forward scored a spectacular goal with the outside of his boot to open scoring in the first half, although the Eagles were pegged back by their opponents from Finland.
The English side could have sealed an automatic spot in the knockout with a win, but will now have to navigate through the playoff rounds to book their spot in the knockout.
The draw for the playoffs will hold on Friday January 16, 2026 in Nyon, Switzerland.
Uche scores ‘trivela’ in Palace draw
Oliver Glasner named a completely different starting 11, with one eye on the weekend’s clash against Leeds United in the English Premier League.
One of those players, Christantus Uche, who had been left out of Nigeria’s squad for the 2025 African Cup of Nations, opened the floodgates with a stunning goal.
The Super Eagles forward started the move and finished with the outside of his boot to give his side a 1-0 lead early in the clash.
However, the visitors scored twice in three second half minutes to retake a shock lead in front of the Palace supporters.
Piotr Parzyszek pulled one back for the Finland champions, before Ibrahim Cisse scored to put them ahead.
They were then reduced to 10 men, as the Eagles made the advantage count, scoring through Justin Devenny.
Crystal Palace could not find a winner and finished in 10th place, outside of the first eight places in the Conference League standings.
Everything Oliver Glasner said
Speaking after the match, Glasner hailed Uche’s spectacular goal and also gave his remark on the grueling fixture list.
“I was pleased with the performance especially of the youngsters. Of course, fantastic goal from Uche, and then we could see we lost a little bit of structure for ten to fifteen minutes, and you get three finishes at the end and score two goals”, the former Eintracht Frankfurt manager said.
On the fixture schedule
“I love it. Including the Carabao Cup semi-final? Hopefully. So it’s easy to avoid these two games, just losing in five days, but that’s not our mindset. We wrote this schedule and hopefully playing the Carabao final, playing the FA Cup final, playing the Conference League final and up to the Premier League having 65 games. That’s what we want”, Glasner continued.
“It’s February, there will be a few players back. I expect, so I hope the AFCON is not extended until March, so this will be really getting some trouble.
“So I expect Ismail Sarr back, I expect Daniel Munoz back in February, and I’m pretty sure we will have one or two signings in January.”
On possible reinforcements in January
“The club is really hard-working behind the scenes and getting these deals done and over the line.
“And all the players are fit and I can just tell you, today we had a few players who said, we have three games in five days, I can play every game in 90 minutes.
“I said, calm down. So it just shows the character of this team and the game today. We would have preferred to win, but everything else, we calculated this risk of maybe getting a draw. But everything else worked how we planned it. We could rest a few players. The only thing that I don’t like is that Leeds now knows our starting line-up already”, he concluded.
Crystal Palace face Leeds United at Elland Road on Saturday, less than two days after their Conference League clash, before facing Arsenal in the EFL Cup quarterfinals on Tuesday.
