Football: English Premier League
Saturday 26 October 2013 - Kick Off 19:45pm
This game is live on TV
Crystal Palace
Ian Holloway decided that it was the best decision to walk away as manager of Crystal Palace in the wake of a heavy 1-4 home loss to Fulham on Monday night. I think there is a lot more to the story considering how early Crystal Palace have made the decision, but I guess all will be revealed in time and for now the Eagles have to concentrate on taking on the League leaders in front of their own fans.The loss to Fulham certainly has fans questioning where Crystal Palace will get the necessary points to survive in the Premier League and they are already 5 points off safety. Palace can't even turn to their form at Selhurst Park as a possible way to bridge that gap as they bring in a 1-0-3 record, scoring 4 goals and conceding 8.
Crystal Palace did beat Sunderland 3-1 here, but they have lost all 5 games they have played since then which ended Holloway's time as manager. Palace have lost back to back home games while they have now won just 2 of their last 9 at Selhurst Park in all competitions and that is a hard mentality to change.
Jonathan Williams is the main absentee from the squad.
Arsenal
A good run of form will see a lot of teams being over-rated by the layers and fans and one of those in the early part of the season is Arsenal. After a strong start beating a lot of poor teams, the Gunners were surprisingly being backed everywhere to beat Dortmund on Tuesday night, but a 1-2 loss puts them in a pretty awkward position in the Champions League Group.Arsene Wenger described the team as being naive in that loss to Dortmund, but will be looking for Arsenal to put three more points on the board in the Premier League ahead of two big games against Liverpool and Manchester United. Arsenal are currently leading the way by 2 points and the bring in a 3-1-0 away record where they have scored 9 goals and conceded 4.
Arsenal saw their 12 game unbeaten run come to an end on Tuesday night, but the Gunners will be expecting to extend their 13 game unbeaten run away from home in all competitions. Of those 13 games, Arsenal have won 11, although they did only manage a 1-1 draw at West Brom in their most recent away game.
Theo Walcott, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Lukas Podolski are all expected to miss this game with Walcott being the player expected to return to the squad the soonest.
Head to Head
Arsenal did beat Crystal Palace 5-1 at home in their last game against one another back in the 2005 season.On that occasion, Crystal Palace earned a 1-1 home draw against the Gunners and they have only lost 1 of their last 3 home games against Arsenal since losing 4 in a row here.
Prediction
You can only beat what is in front of you and Arsenal have certainly done that so far, but there has still be an over-reaction to their start to the season, although that is unlikely to be shown up this weekend.Crystal Palace are a team with a lot of uncertainty around them after losing their manager and coming off a heavy home loss to Fulham. They don't really stop teams playing and that doesn't bode well for them against an Arsenal team that have attacking players that have created chances.
A negative feeling may not be improved much if Arsenal score early in this one and it could be very tough for Crystal Palace to even keep the scoreline looking respectable if that happens. Arsenal will keep coming forward and they have won comfortably at Fulham and Sunderland, two teams that are about what Palace bring to the table.
I am expecting Arsenal to bounce back from their own loss during the week and heap more problems on Palace and I like the away side to win this by a couple of goals.
The Statistics :
No comments:
Post a Comment