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The story
Crystal Palace, the Premier League club that fields Japan national team midfielder Daichi Kamada and defender Takehiro Tomiyasu, have sacked manager Pierre Sarge. The trigger was a record of 2 wins, 1 draw and 7 losses through 10 matches, including four straight league defeats that dropped them to the bottom of the table. Sarge had been poached from RC Lens to replace Oliver Glasner, who stepped down at the end of last season. On 5ch, threads debated Kamada’s goal and assist tally, his defensive output in a defensive-midfield role, and comparisons with fellow Premier League player Ao Tanaka, citing numbers like minutes played and distance covered.
Crystal Palace, home to Japan national team midfielder Daichi Kamada and defender Takehiro Tomiyasu, announced on the 12th that they have sacked manager Pierre Sarge.
Palace lost 1-3 to Liverpool in matchday 10 of the Premier League on the 8th. That result left the Eagles on 2 wins, 1 draw and 7 losses — just 7 points — after a fourth straight league loss, dropping them to the bottom of the table.
Faced with this poor run of form, the club decided to sack Sarge, who had been brought in from RC Lens to replace Oliver Glasner after he departed at the end of last season.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
up through about matchday 5.
Has there ever been a stretch where Tomiyasu DIDN'T go down injured?
Fair point. Wish he were a bit more durable.
Only 3 assists too.
And by the way, every single one of those goals and assists came this season.
Zero goals, zero assists before that.
Way overrated.
Ao Tanaka scored against big clubs like Chelsea and Liverpool right after arriving in the Premier League, and even got Man of the Match in his very first game.
His club Leeds also rank higher than Palace, both on Opta's numbers and in the actual league table.
Moriyasu's Japan team is defense-first — not scoring is fine by that philosophy.
They just got stomped 1-9 by Como anyway.
just shows what level we're really talking about, doesn't it?
Like, nobody from a team fighting for last place in the J.League ever gets a national team call-up.
That just means the level inside that team is low.
If Forest keeps this up, Glasner might get sacked too and come right back to Palace.
Wait, didn't Glasner leave Palace on bad terms?
He's getting called up for cup matches and for the national team — he's probably played more games than anyone else on the national team roster. And he's 30, lol.
Ao Tanaka's been beating guys like Tonali, Kudus, Rice, and Saka — winning almost every duel, basically dominating.
Ao Tanaka's recent defensive numbers are beyond not just Kamada, but even Wataru Endo and Kaishu Sano.
Ao Tanaka's FotMob rating among Premier League midfielders in 2026/2027 is 6.85, ranking 40th out of 64.
This season his numbers put him 3rd from the bottom of his team's regular starting XI.
Compare that to Brighton, who bring in good players even after losing their key guys — it's night and day.
They bought Brennan Johnson for a club-record fee and sold him at the end of the season. What a joke.
Results haven't been great, but they just beat Man City recently, so I don't think he'll get fired right away.
Even in the Premier League, an Asian player on a team this far at the bottom is gonna fly under everyone's radar.
Even playing a bit well in a losing match is basically the same as not existing.
That's a dumb comparison — it shows you don't actually watch football regularly.
Total newbie energy.
The Premier League, even including the second tier, is high level — that's just not true.
Morita isn't cutting it either — looks like next season it'll just be Tanaka and Zion left.
Lol, 'drop Kamada' — the guy's got 5 goals in qualifiers and 2 in the actual World Cup.
Meanwhile Tanaka's got just 1 goal in qualifiers.
Background and talking points
Crystal Palace had posted strong results under former manager Oliver Glasner, even qualifying for European competition, but his successor Pierre Sarge — brought in from RC Lens — oversaw just 2 wins, 1 draw and 7 losses through the opening 10 matches, dropping the club to last place after four straight league losses and ultimately getting sacked. The thread repeatedly circles back to comparisons between Daichi Kamada and Ao Tanaka, who plays for fellow Premier League side Leeds, with each player’s supporters citing their own numbers — minutes played, distance covered, goals and assists — to argue who’s better. It’s worth noting these are snapshot stats from partway through the season that will keep shifting before it ends. It’s also worth remembering that ‘defensive contribution as a defensive midfielder’ depends heavily on how a player is deployed and on team tactics, so the debate can’t really be settled by raw numbers alone. This kind of argument over Japan-based-abroad players flares up again and again for players well beyond just Kamada and Tanaka, and this thread is just the latest example.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports Express+) thread “[Football] Japan national team… Crystal Palace, home of Kamada & Tomiyasu, sack manager Sarge… defensive collapse drops them to the bottom of the Premier League”.
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