Who is Pierre Sage? An in-depth look at Crystal Palace’s potential new manager

With a second major trophy in two seasons, Oliver Glasner bowed out as Crystal Palace manager and brought to an end arguably the most successful period in the club’s history. For a club with relatively limited resources and a seemingly unshakable habit of having to sell their best players, replacing the only head coach ever to bring silverware to Selhurst Park is going to be an uphill struggle.

Enter Pierre Sage, head coach of French Ligue 1 runners-up RC Lens and now the clear favourite for the vacancy after BBC Sport reported that Palace were planning to hold talks with the 47-year-old this week. A deal is far from certain, but the Frenchman seems to be the club’s preferred option – so just who is Sage, what kind of football can we expect if he gets the job, and does he look likely to be a good fit for Crystal Palace?

Who is potential Crystal Palace manager Pierre Sage?

Sage’s CV is relatively short, but his work at Lens over the past season has earned him plenty of admirers – beyond Crystal Palace, he is also reportedly an option for Liverpool should they fail to land primary target Andoni Iraola. A move to Selhurst Park looks more likely at this stage, however.

Sage never played professional football but joined Lyon as a youth coach in 2019 and worked his way swiftly up the ranks before being appointed as interim head coach in 2023 following the sacking of Fabio Grosso, and eventually spent a little over two years in charge before being dismissed following a run of poor results in January 2025.

That rough run belied a solid body of work, however. Lyon were in a relegation battle when Sage took over, but finished sixth in the league and as runners-up in the Coupe de France in 2024. It was enough to persuade Lens to give him a chance last summer – and it proved to be an inspired decision.

Lens won the Coupe de France for the first time in their 120-year history this season, beating Nice 3-1 in the final, and finished second in Ligue 1, running PSG close in a title race which was only decided when the eventual European champions beat them 2-0 on the penultimate weekend – a game which Lens dominated for long periods. In terms of unexpected success, Sage has been to Lens what Glasner was to Crystal Palace.

That extends to his ability to win with limited resources. Lens had a mid-table wage bill of around £680,000 per week, according to Capology – less than a quarter of the amount spent by PSG on salaries. Despite that disadvantage, Sage was able to go toe-to-toe with Luis Enrique’s star-studded side for most of the campaign.

Sage’s accession to the Palace job is by no means certain. Other names are on the table, with the BBC reporting that Kieran McKenna, Sean Dyche, Frank Lampard, Thomas Frank and former Eintracht Frankfurt manager Dino Toppmöller are all under consideration. The club had also held out recent hope of appointing Iraola, but that seemed to represent a vanishing possibility even before he was approached by Liverpool.

Still, Sage seems to be the leading candidate, and his brief history of top-level management suggests a coach with the tools to succeed at Selhurst Park. But will he be a good fit if he does indeed take over from Glasner this summer?

Why Sage’s tactics make him a strong fit for Crystal Palace

Sage has established a reputation as a pragmatic manager rather than as a tactical dogmatist, adjusting his playing style and strategy when he moved from Lyon to Lens and occasionally switching away from his preferred formation when he believed that a change would give him the upper hand.

That versatility suggests that moving to a new club wouldn’t necessarily induce a major upheaval, but it helps matters that his usual tactics with Lens map closely onto those used by Glasner at Crystal Palace.

Usually operating out of a 3-4-3 which focussed on bypassing the midfield with quick attacks and wide overloads, his style of play was fundamentally similar to that used by the outgoing Palace manager. Sage’s installation would represent strategic continuity, limiting the extent of the adjustment that the squad would have to make.

Sage is also a strong believer in a high pressing game, although his pressing system is structured around positional triggers rather than the chaotic, free-for-all aggression which became Jürgen Klopp’s trademark at Liverpool. Lens forced a significant volume of high turnovers and were often able to start attacks far upfield – and when they weren’t able to take the ball in such advanced areas, they often found ways to get downfield quickly.

Crucially, Sage is also an established expert at set piece coaching, an increasingly important aspect of the game in the Premier League. Although their success rate from dead balls declined towards the end of the season, their 13 goals from set plays was the second best mark in Ligue 1, while only four teams conceded fewer from such situations than their seven. Lens also scored more goals (eight) from any other from counter-attacks, evidencing the efficacy of Sage’s wide, fast-paced attacking approach and his pressing system.

Crucially, Sage also kept the number of goals conceded down, which had been his Achilles heel at Lyon. There, his team tended to be too open on the counter-attack themselves, but his switch to a back three system meant that Lens allowed just 35 goals in 34 league matches, second only to eventual champions PSG.

Back three systems have struggled in the Premier League this year, with Leeds being the only team to enjoy sustained success in domestic competition using a three-man defence, but Crystal Palace’s relatively disappointing league campaign can be explained in part by their focus on cup competitions, a focus which yielded a Europa Conference League win.

Whoever takes over from Glasner will have a tough act to follow and may have to work with a Crystal Palace team shorn, once again, of some of its best players, with Adam Wharton and Maxence Lacroix both attracting significant transfer interest. But Sage seems like a natural tactical fit for the role and has done enough at Lens to suggest that he could succeed in the Premier League too. If he does indeed get the job, it may be another savvy appointment by Crystal Palace.