Glasner and Palace enter sham marriage for the sake of ‘kids’ he threw under Sunderland-shaped bus

As heartening as it is to hear that Crystal Palace and Oliver Glasner are making a go of it again after ‘positive talks’ over the weekend, it doesn’t half feel like a desperate attempt for the sake of the children who ended up being thrown under a Wearside bus.

Some things can neither be unsaid nor undone . No amount of reconciliation can fix a relationship which already had a known parting point before Glasner set in motion an emotionally destructive plan to accelerate it.

This marriage has gone from brilliant to broken and now entirely a sham.

Not 24 hours after declaring he had vocalised his intention to leave in October in a brutal press conference which announced the imminent sale of their captain, Glasner’s comment that “we feel we are being abandoned completely” felt laughably hollow.

Those Palace fans who rejected his conciliatory approach after losing having led at the Stadium of Light certainly seemed to take offence at the use of the royal ‘we’. Their booing of the club’s greatest ever manager was pointed, their sympathy and support for him expended.

And the way Glasner actively amplified his calculated message to the board in a defeat by pointing out “we have made no substitutions – look at the bench, just kids there in our attack,” must have really boosted the confidence of summer signing Christantus Uche in particular.

Glasner, by the way, might be minded to accept that Palace’s place in the football food chain makes the exits of such talents as Eberechi Eze and Marc Guehi inevitable. And if he wishes to publicly and petulantly lament the timing of those deals, perhaps he could have a conversation with Blackpool manager Ian Evatt, who had to send Danny Imray back to Selhurst Park on “the last day of the recall option” for the 22-year-old to sit on a top-flight bench for 90 minutes instead of playing regular competitive football.

The Seasiders probably didn’t appreciate losing their right-back on the eve of a League One relegation six-pointer against Barnsley, which they ultimately lost.

The Austrian has always had a point regarding Palace’s lack of ambition in the face of a unique opportunity, but also cannot feign surprise or fury when a club decides not to overindulge or stretch themselves too thin for the sake of a manager who would have left them eventually either way.

Palace could have invested more, but Glasner could also not have lost to sixth-tier Macclesfield or stumbled through a Conference League campaign he and this squad could have walked if it had been taken seriously. This is not a blameless break-up on either side.

And there are ways to go about it. Expelling toys from pram after overseeing a 10th straight winless game – or trying to absolve oneself of responsibility completing for suffering the biggest shock in FA Cup history – ain’t it, chief.

So good luck to Palace and Glasner going forward, but it really does feel like a temporary accord which will only result in the manager holding the club’s head beneath the surface of all that water under the bridge.

If Palace don’t think he’ll blow up again after the next loss or at the end of an underwhelming transfer window then they’re remarkably naive. And if Steve Parish hasn’t already told Roy Hodgson to stick his tracksuit and shorts in the wash then what are we all doing here?