Crystal Palace travel to Tottenham Hotspur in Oliver Glasner's first away match since being appointed Crystal Palace manager over a week ago.
Palace, who haven't won a league match at Tottenham since 1997 are seeking their first away win since November 4th.
Glasner began life as Palace boss in the perfect fashion with a 3-0 victory over Burnley last weekend at Selhurst Park.
A win at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium will send a huge statement of intent from Glasner and his Palace side, who look to continue to steer further away from the drop zone.
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Winless since 1997
Crystal Palace have only ever had one Premier League win at Spurs in their history: a 1-0 victory in 1997, with Neil Shipperly securing all three points for the Eagles that day.
Oliver Glasner admitted that Palace face a tough task at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, but his newly-inherited side will be more than up for the challenge.
"Of course I know the terrible record, but you know what happens in the past, it must not always have to be in the future," he said.
"We go there and we prepare as well as we can. We analyse them. I think we know what are the opportunities for us, but then it's important to show it in the stadium, to show it on the pitch.
"But Tottenham are a very good team, who also have a different way of playing. I know them with Conte as manager, now it’s Postecoglou, who does a great job there. It is more offensive playing and defending very high, a very aggressive way of playing.
"We will have troubles to find solutions, but if we find the spaces, you have a lot of space. Wolves showed it two weeks ago, so we go there with confidence and we go there to take the three points.
"Maybe it's time after 27 years!"
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Key Players Return
Crystal Palace - who have the third worst injury record in the league - have been boosted by the return of a number of key players this weekend.
“Fortunately, they are all okay, Will [Hughes] and Ebs [Eberechi Eze], they have had all the training sessions the whole week, so they are back in the squad tomorrow. The same with Joachim [Andersen]."
However, the Palace boss confirmed that Marc Guehi, who was due to return this week, had undergone surgery on his knee.
“Last week I said I hope he [Guéhi] can be with us in training this week, but his knee reacted in a way we didn’t like, so he visited the doctor one more time and he said 'okay, it’s better to have surgery'.
"But, he’s doing well, he’s recovering, and we will support him as well as we can so that he’s back with us and will have some games at the end of the season.”
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Glad to have 'Ebs' back
Eberechi Eze is set to make his Crystal Palace return with Glasner expressing his excitement to work with him. However, he was key to emphasise that one player doesn't make a team.
"Of course, I’m always happy when the players are fit and available for the game, Ebs is a great player for us, but it’s also important that Will is back – he’s an experienced player who gives us more opportunities in the game.
"I think Ebs can not win the game for us alone, so he needs all his teammates. As a team I think we are in good shape with good confidence.
"I’m very happy with the week of training sessions. He’ll be important for us, but again we’ll need all the players to succeed at Tottenham."
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Glasner's Adaptation to Training
Glasner insinuated that the Palace squad he inherited from Roy Hodgson were low on fitness and he had to make some changes to the training plans in SE25.
"We have to take care of the players, that they are ready for the game. The most important fitness level is Saturday, and it will be tomorrow at Tottenham.
"As I’ve said, we have different days we are training.
"The team was used to being off on Sunday and on Wednesday. We trained on Sunday – recovery, of course, for the starters – and we gave them off Monday, so we have had now four days in a row. We always look at what they did before and what we want to improve, where we want to increase."
The Eagles boss emphasised the importance of structure in his first full week as Crystal Palace manager.
"The most important thing that I could enjoy this week more than the week before was now we start to get a daily routine: to come in the morning, speak about football, speak with the players, speak about what we want to do in training, to analyse our game against Burnley.
"The first three days was, I don't know, 90% not football and 10% football, so maybe this week it was 50-50 and the next weeks will be better. It will be more football because this is what I like, to talk about football, to talk with the players, what they need, so this I enjoyed most in this week."
He also added that everything in his training plans must be focused towards game scenarios to maximise results.
"For me, everything we do in training is what we need in the game and we can not demand something from the players in the game when we never did it in training. Everything we do in the training sessions, from Tuesday to Friday and on Sunday, is what we expect the players to do.
"We want to give them confidence to support them, that they maybe have the same situations in the game and they know what to do. And so if we want to play very intense, we have to train very intense."