Crystal Palace Fire Pierre Sage After 16 Games as Last Season's Trophy Winners Sink to the Bottom of the Premier League

Five months after arriving in south London as the man to build on the best era in Crystal Palace history, Pierre Sage is gone. The club announced Thursday that Sage has left his role as manager, along with three members of his coaching staff, Jamal Alioui, Damien Della Santa and Sandy Guichard, BBC Sport reported.

Palace thanked Sage and his staff for their efforts and said an update on appointing a new manager would come in due course. No interim manager was named.

The numbers are stark. Sage won five, drew three and lost eight of his 16 matches in charge, scoring 23 goals and conceding 30, according to BBC Sport. In the Premier League, Palace have won just two of 10 games and have the worst defensive record in the division, with 24 goals conceded.

The slide came fast. ESPN tallied four straight league defeats: a 5-0 thrashing at Brighton on Oct. 18 in which Palace gave up three goals in the first 10 minutes, a 2-0 home loss to Newcastle, a 2-0 defeat at Tottenham on Oct. 31 after striker Jean-Philippe Mateta was sent off in the first half, and Sunday's 3-1 home loss to Liverpool just before the international break. ESPN called the Liverpool result the last straw. The defeats left Palace at the bottom of the table after a full round of games for the first time since December 2017.

Europe brought little relief. Palace sit 21st of 36 teams in the Europa League's league phase with one win from four matches, and one of those losses came 3-2 against Lyon, Sage's former club.

Sage, a 47-year-old Frenchman, signed a three-year deal in June to replace Oliver Glasner, the Austrian who led Palace through its most successful spell. Glasner has since taken over at Nottingham Forest, AFP reported.

ESPN reported at the time that Palace chose Sage after Andoni Iraola left for Liverpool. Glasner's exit followed a dispute over transfer policy, according to AFP.

Sage came with an impressive record. At Lens last season he won the club's first French Cup and finished second in Ligue 1 behind Paris Saint-Germain, earning Ligue 1 manager of the season honors, according to ESPN. Before that, he took over a Lyon side sitting bottom of the French league in November 2023 and guided it to sixth place and a French Cup final, which Lyon lost 2-1 to Paris Saint-Germain, before being dismissed in January 2025.

He also inherited a club with something to lose. Under Glasner, Palace beat Manchester City at Wembley to win the 2025 FA Cup, beat Liverpool on penalties in the Community Shield, and then won the Conference League in May after UEFA moved the club out of the Europa League under its multi-club ownership rules.

Former Brentford and Tottenham manager Thomas Frank has been tipped to take over, AFP reported, and BBC Sport's headline said a deal was nearing. The Football Faithful described Frank as the leading candidate and said talks were advanced. Tottenham dismissed Frank in February. Palace have not said when they expect to name Sage's successor, only that an update will follow.

There is a lesson in Palace's season that goes beyond one club. Sage arrived with a winning record and a three-year contract, and he did not last half a season. In modern sports, patience has become the rarest commodity of all, and the pressure to win right now can turn last spring's celebration into this fall's crisis.

Character gets tested in seasons like this one, for players and coaches alike, and the clubs that recover are usually the ones that stay united when the results turn. Palace still have time. Ten games into a 38-game season, the table can turn. But the next manager inherits a team that has forgotten how to defend and a fan base that has tasted silverware and does not want to give it back.