Friday’s briefing: Premier League clues frustrate Oliver Glasner more than draw

Crystal Palace missed out on a place in the top eight of the Conference League on Thursday night, but will quickly turn focus back to the Premier League.

Manchester United travel to Aston Villa on Sunday and former captain Roy Keane waded into the debate around Kobbie Mainoo’s long-term future.

Meanwhile, under-fire Celtic boss Wilfried Nancy took training as normal at Lennoxtown on Thursday, despite heightened speculation over his job after a fourth consecutive defeat.

Glasner grumpy about Leeds insight rather than result

Palace boss Oliver Glasner insisted his only disappointment after a costly 2-2 draw with KuPS at Selhurst Park was that Leeds now know his starting line-up for this weekend’s Premier League match.

FA Cup holders Palace required a victory over the Finnish champions to claim a top-eight finish in the Conference League and qualify direct for the last 16, but Christantus Uche’s opener was cancelled out by efforts by Piotr Parzyszek and Ibrahim Cisse.

Even though Clinton Antwi was sent off and Justin Devenny equalised for Palace in the 77th minute, no late winner followed and Palace finished 10th in the league phase, but Glasner’s main gripe was with that his much-changed XI had given a clue to Leeds.

“The result is not what we wanted. It’s a game we could easily have won. We calculated the risk of getting a draw,” Glasner said.

“Everything else worked as we planned it because we were able to rest a few players. The only thing I don’t like is that Leeds now know our starting line-up because there are only 11 players who didn’t start and nobody will start both games.

Keane blasts Mainoo’s brother an ‘idiot’ after personalised T-shirt

Keane urged Mainoo to fight for his place at Man United as he branded the midfielder’s half-brother an “idiot”.

England international Mainoo is still awaiting his first Premier League start of the season with his lack of game time under Ruben Amorim a major ongoing talking point.

The 20-year-old’s half-brother Jordan Mainoo-Hames made headlines on Monday evening by wearing a Free Kobbie Mainoo T-shirt during United’s 4-4 draw with Bournemouth.

“Every day is your challenge to prove to the manager and when that manager is picking the team I’m going to train like a beast and when you’re writing that team (as a manager) you’re going to go, ‘he has to play’. He’s got to get that in his mindset,” ex-Man United captain Keane said on The Overlap.

“And when he’s got his idiot of a brother doing all that… we shouldn’t even be giving his brother the time of day. Sometimes you’re just surrounded by idiots, especially the families.”

Under-pressure Celtic boss Nancy not going anywhere yet

Wilfried Nancy presided over training at Lennoxtown on Thursday amid social media rumours that the Celtic manager was facing a swift exit from his position.

Fans bluntly called for the Frenchman to leave at Tannadice on Wednesday during a fourth consecutive defeat in charge.

A Celtic source dismissed claims that Nancy was meeting with board members to discuss a severance package just two weeks after arriving in Glasgow.

The 48-year-old has overseen Celtic’s longest losing streak since 1978 and defeat to Aberdeen on Sunday would match a run not witnessed since the 1952-53 season.

Defeat at Dundee United came shortly after Celtic chief executive Michael Nicholson declared the club’s backing for Nancy was “absolutely solid” and that transfer window planning was under way.

Pep pleased as Man City squad make case in cup

Pep Guardiola believes he found a better balance with rotation for Wednesday’s Carabao Cup win over Brentford and hopes it can aid a “crazy” January schedule.

Man City made seven changes for the midweek visit of the Bees, in contrast to a completely different line-up for a recent Champions League defeat to Bayer Leverkusen.

Nico Gonzalez, Nico O’Reilly, Tijjani Reijnders and Rayan Cherki were the only survivors from Sunday’s 3-0 win at Crystal Palace, with the likes of Oscar Bobb and Savinho given their chance to press for more playing time – although in Bobb’s case the night ended prematurely through a hamstring injury.

“We changed Rico (Lewis), (Abdukodir) Khusanov, Nathan (Ake), Divine (Mukasa), these players that didn’t play much recently performed really well,” Guardiola said.

“We have a good result, we struggled in the first 10-15 minutes to take the game but after that came the two actions with Savinho and Oscar in behind. I am really pleased with the impact from the guys who came off the bench.

What’s on?

An eagerly-anticipated all-Welsh derby between Swansea and Wrexham will take place on Friday night.

Earlier in the day, we will hear from a host of different Premier League managers, including Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta.