Crystal Palace fires coach Pierre Sage with team last in Premier League

Crystal Palace fired coach Pierre Sage on Thursday after his troubled five-month tenure left the club sitting last in the Premier League and struggling to balance the demands of domestic and European soccer after selling some more of its key players.

Sage, hired in the summer as the replacement for Oliver Glasner, lost his job barely an hour after Michael Carrick was fired by Manchester United. They are the first two Premier League managers to be sacked this season.

Palace has just two wins from 10 games in England's top flight, with a 2-1 loss to Liverpool on Sunday — its fourth straight defeat in the league — leaving the team in last place on seven points.

Palace has won just one of its four matches in the Europa League.

Former Brentford and Tottenham coach Thomas Frank is reportedly among the favorites to take over at Selhurst Park.

“An update on the process of appointing a new manager will be provided in due course,” Palace said.

Sage arrived from Lens in June and had the daunting task of succeeding Oliver Glasner, who established himself as a club great after leading Palace to three trophies in two years: The FA Cup , the Community Shield and the Conference League.

Before that, Palace had never won a major trophy.

Sage was partly hired because he deployed the same 3-4-3 formation as Glasner, but the club hasn't backed the Frenchman with a deep enough squad to handle a tough schedule that mostly demands a game every three or four days because of Europa League commitments.

The departure of key defenders Maxence Lacroix, to Chelsea, and Daniel Munoz, who followed Glasner to Nottingham Forest, has weakened the backline, and continued the theme of Palace being unable to keep hold of all of its best players.

Other Palace stars departing in recent years include Michael Olise, Eberechi Eze and Marc Guehi.

AP Soccer Writer James Robson in Manchester, England, contributed to this story.

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