Crystal Palace

Crystal Palace are the most authentically hostile matchday experience in the Premier League, and they should be proud of that fact rather than apologising for it. The Eagles are a south London institution where the Holmesdale Fanatics generate an atmosphere that makes the sanitised corporate noise at bigger grounds sound like library ambience. Based in Selhurst, in the London Borough of Croydon, Palace have been a stubborn presence in the top flight since 2013 — not merely surviving but gradually establishing themselves as a side with genuine European aspirations. Nobody gives Palace anything. They take it.

Oliver Glasner’s arrival in February 2024 transformed a team that was sleepwalking toward mediocrity into one of the most exhilarating sides in the division. The Austrian oversaw six wins in seven to close the 2023-24 season, and the brand of football was so aggressive, so committed to attack, that it felt like Palace had been holding back for years. Glasner’s high-energy approach has given Selhurst Park a purpose it has not felt since the Hodgson era, and the planned redevelopment of the 25,486-capacity ground into something befitting a European-chasing club is long overdue.

Australian fans who want authenticity over plastic spectacle should look no further than Palace. The Eagles do not market themselves as a lifestyle brand. They are a football club, raw and unfiltered, and that distinction matters more than most people realise.

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Palace enter 2025-26 with a swagger that would have seemed delusional three years ago, and that is entirely down to Glasner’s refusal to accept that Crystal Palace should be content with merely existing in the Premier League. The Austrian has turned the Eagles into one of the most dangerous sides in the division on any given Saturday, and the planned Selhurst Park redevelopment will eventually give the club a home that matches its growing ambitions. The Holmesdale End will remain the emotional engine room regardless of what the builders do. A top-half finish and a deep cup run are the minimum acceptable targets now — and if that sounds like arrogance, well, arrogance is rather the point of being a Palace supporter.

VS — Chief sports columnist, australiafootball.com