Oliver Glasner cut a frustrated figure after Crystal Palace were undone by a dead-ball situation in their 1-0 loss to Tottenham at Selhurst Park.
The Eagles controlled large spells of the contest against Spurs in their final outing of 2025. However, a lack of clinical edge proved costly, even with clear opportunities falling to Jean-Philippe Mateta, Justin Devenny and Maxence Lacroix.
Tottenham, though, scored the decisive goal of the match, with Archie Gray nodding home from close range after Palace were unable to deal with a corner.
Glasner pointed to defending set-pieces as an area that needs improvement, while also expressing sympathy for his squad following such a tight defeat.
“It’s a performance of both teams where I think you shouldn’t lose the game,” Glasner told his post-match press conference. “We created enough to score goals, but we missed all our chances of getting punished by a corner, by a set-play.
“It showed exactly what we have to improve.
“We could see today, and some of you are watching Crystal Palace longer than me, but I can’t remember a Palace side dominate the Tottenham side like we did today.
“That makes it frustrating for all our players, because they are feeling the same. I don’t blame anybody for missing the chances, but we have to accept right now that we have a little bit of a lack of finishing quality in the team.
“But I could see, the way we play, with the structure and the chances we create, the [attacking] patterns worked. It’s now really about supporting the players to get this confidence back, that they are able to score more goals.”
Looking back on Palace’s progress across 2025 after their final match of the calendar year, Glasner added: “2025, in the calendar year table, 37 games played in the Premier League and we are sixth in the table.
“Besides this, we are in the knock-out stage of a European competition.
“Besides this, we won the Community Shield and, of course, we won the FA Cup.
“So I think it’s by far the most successful calendar year in Crystal Palace history. This group of players delivered and achieved it.
“Today it doesn’t feel like this, but again, I see all the effort. I see the way we’re playing. Last year we won 1-0 here against Tottenham, but I think today we were much more dominant than we were in that game one year ago.
“It’s been an incredible year overall. So all the credit to the players for their effort, their togetherness and their quality. 2025 was an incredible year for Crystal Palace.
“All the credit to the players with their effort, with their work ethic, with their togetherness and their quality. Today it doesn’t feel like this, but [they deserve] a well done.”