It has been a strange kind of summer in SE25. Three trophies in the space of twelve months, a first European crown lifted in Leipzig — and yet the man who delivered it all is now sitting in the Nottingham Forest dugout. Into that void steps Pierre Sage, and on Thursday the Guardian published the national press’s first big verdict on what comes next for the Crystal Palace 2026-27 season: its writers have collectively tipped the Eagles to finish 16th. Sixteenth. For the reigning Conference League champions. Plenty of Palace fans will have spat out their coffee.
With the Premier League opener away at Everton just nine days off, the preview is the first proper national temperature check of the Sage era — and it lands somewhere between caution and outright pessimism. Whether you buy it depends largely on how you read a window that has so far brought four signings, one painful swap deal and a rejected club-record bid.
What the Guardian makes of the Crystal Palace 2026-27 season
In the Guardian’s preview, Ed Aarons writes that Palace ‘take a risk’ with Sage, whose task is to build on Oliver Glasner’s unprecedented success while juggling the demands of a Europa League campaign. Watching Glasner jump ship to Forest — of all clubs — was, in Aarons’ words, ‘a bitter pill to swallow’ for supporters.
The concerns are specific. Maxence Lacroix’s departure to Chelsea ‘has left Palace’s defence without a natural leader’, and Aarons argues that finding a similar character ‘could go a long way to determining how they fare’. He is also unsparing about the January business, suggesting the roughly £80m spent on Jørgen Strand Larsen and Brennan Johnson ‘looks even more mistaken’ now Johnson has been swapped for Dwight McNeil seven months later — a move he believes has restricted this summer’s budget. Stir it all together and the Guardian’s writers land on an average predicted finish of 16th.
Reasons for optimism at Selhurst Park
And yet even this cautious preview is laced with encouragement. Daichi Kamada’s decision to sign a new one-year contract rather than follow Glasner out of the door ‘will have pleased’ supporters, Aarons notes, and eight of the players who started the FA Cup final win over Manchester City remain at the club.
The window has hardly been idle either. Oscar Mingueza, Takehiro Tomiyasu on a free, McNeil and the returning Evann Guessand make four summer arrivals, with the Ivorian back on loan after playing his part in the Conference League triumph. There is a Europa League league-phase adventure to come, and — to everyone’s great relief, as the preview puts it — work has finally started on the new Main Stand, almost a decade after the plans were first announced.
The next fortnight will shape everything
The Guardian’s real warning is about what happens before deadline day. Holding on to Daniel Muñoz, Adam Wharton and Ismaïla Sarr is described as ‘the tricky bit’, with Muñoz attracting interest from Saudi Arabia. Palace’s ambition is not in question — the club-record bid for Lamine Camara rejected by Monaco this week proves that — but converting interest into signings is the job now.
So, 16th? For a side that finished 13th last season while winning the club’s first European trophy, it reads less like prophecy and more like provocation. Sage takes his team to Freiburg for a final friendly before the opener at Everton on Saturday 22 August — and when Glasner brings Forest to Selhurst Park in October, Palace fans will hope the table is already making the Guardian’s writers look silly.
