Palace at Selhurst Park next up, 5.30pm kick off. Another November Saturday evening game with one more to come when we play Chelski in a fortnight. Are Sky using Spurs as their chief weapon in the ratings battle against the BBC’s Strictly?
Last season’s heroic climb up the table after giving the rest of the division eight games start will have raised expectations for this year amongst Eagles fans, but disappointingly for them just two wins and two draws from their 11 games so far sees them in 14thplace, only two points clear of Huddersfield in the relegation zone.
They had a pattern – win when Wilfried Zaha plays, lose when he doesn’t, however it’s not quite so clear cut these days as Zaha has played ten league games scoring 3 goals without much of a positive effect on the points column.
Palace haven’t won and have scored a grand total of two goals at home thus far, both penalties and both against the filthy gooners. That was in their last game at Selhurst Park when they’ll have been pleased with getting a 2-2 draw. They would also have been feeling quite chipper when Andros Townsend showed David Luiz a clean pair of heels and equalised in the 53rdminute at Stamford Bridge last week. All that goal did though was prod Chelsea & Eden Hazard into action and they ended up losing 3-1.
They have been struggling for goals with Christian Benteke being MIA for most of the campaign thus far not helping. Neither Jordan Ayew or Alexander Sørloth have hit the ground running. They also don’t have quite the atmosphere at home (not that we can talk – Wembley has been like a funeral parlour for the last few games. Please make it stop.) that they’ve been used to as the club have had a spat with the Holmesdale Fanatics. The latter tried to twist the club’s arm into giving them more centrally based seats behind the goal, the club refused, the Fanatics stormed off in a huff. That was the case anyway, I don’t know if they’ve come to a compromise since.
We have more injuries than we’d like still with all of Vertonghen, Rose & Dembélé unavailable. Dier and Wanyama are sort of alright by the sounds of it and we’ll need one of these to be fit enough to start alongside Winks, if not then Sissoko? Eriksen? Dele? Not good. Palace’s midfield is strong, Milivojevic, Kouyate and McArthur, we should beef ours up in response otherwise Winks will be exposed.
Going forward we have everyone ready to go I believe. Kane, Son, Eriksen, Lucas, Lamela, Dele…. Chaaaaaarge!
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Despite all the downbeat stuff listed above, Palace have been playing ok. The draw with Dick Emery’s boys and the battling performance against Chelsea will put them in good heart. We’ll need to be as clinical as we were against Wolves if we’re going to extend our remarkable away record, 6 wins out of 7.
To add a touch of randomness to the game, Jonathan Moss is the referee. This is the first time we or Crystal Palace have had him this season.
COYS
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