Pre Match : Crystal Palace v Liverpool : Sat 29th Oct : 5.30pm

Another Saturday evening game for the mighty Red Men. Not great getting bladdered so early on a Saturday but at least it means a snooze while X Factor is on!

Although Palace will obviously play defensively unlike the Baggies they will look to use their pace on the counter esp through their wingers.
Zaha will need to be watched closely as he will be up against one of our slower players in Milner.

The other threat will be as per usual the set piece, fortunately Palace only have a couple of danger men in that respect with Benteke and Scott Dan.

Can we keep a clean sheet, probably not but we still should have too much for Palace.

Same team as last week for me, the old adage if don't change a winning team. Great fire power on the bench if needed with Sturridge and Origi and Can will have to bide his time.

Karius
Clyne
Lovren
Matip
Milner

Hendo
Ginny
Lallana

Mane
Coutinho
Firmino

On their manor.

Pardew has set them up to play their wing men and get the crosses in.

Benteke not surprisingly has got his confidence up and has a point to prove to us.

Didn't know his younger brother Jonathan plays for them as a striker.



Be an interesting game   with the odd goal separating the teams in our favour.

1-2  to us.

stop crosses into Benteke and we win this handy

Since they are at home, they will attack us so we will have our chances to make a difference and get a result. Stop the supply to Benteke and stick Matip as man marking to him.

This ain't gonna be easy but I'm afraid they're gonna borrow maureen's douuble decker bus and hit us on the counter. Get an early goal will cause them to throw their plans out of the wndow. Happy that Studge has started to score again.

Expecting a tough game at Selhurst Park, seems harsh to leave Studge out but Firmino works harder, i'd go with:

Karius

Clyne
Matip
Lovren
Milner

Wijnaldum
Henderson (c)
Lallana

Mane
Firmino
Coutinho

Subs: Mignolet; Lucas, Moreno; Emre Can, Grujic; Sturridge, Origi.

2-1 to us 👍

We're going to see the solid XI I imagine:

Karius

Clyne
Matip
Lovren
Milner

Henderson
Wijnaldum
Lallana

Mane
Firmino
Coutinho


It will be a test for us, big ben will no doubt mean a lot of crosses to defend.

I think we can unlock their defence though, do it early and we won't have an issue.

3-1 to us.

Didn't know his younger brother Jonathan plays for them as a striker.

Signed for them the same day as Big Ben. Maybe another sweetener to get Christian to sign for them.

I'm going with 4-0. One team is going to absolutely cop it from us the way we've been playing and I'd love for it to be against Pardew.

Think this could be a tricky game tbh. Palace not the easiest side to play against. I think Benteke scored a late winner for the Reds, in the corresponding fixture last year. Hope the Reds keep their form going, coming away with another victory.

Potential frustration game here IMO. We all saw how shitty we were at defending Benteke when he was at Villa, so I'm not hugely confident at the moment. We absolutely have to stop the supply coming in.

Virtually every pre match thread is littered with quotes similar to "This could be a potential banana skin" - such a confident lot on here

Potential frustration game here IMO. We all saw how shitty we were at defending Benteke when he was at Villa, so I'm not hugely confident at the moment. We absolutely have to stop the supply coming in.

We have 8ft 9" Matip now though so maybe we'll be alright...

Can see the danger with Benteke, but we should have too much for them up top. Cant see bent eke getting anything but scraps.
It's another potential banana skin, but we at last seem to have learn't not to underestimate anyone.
Think with our mobility we will give the palace defence and midfield a torrid time. Going for 0 - 2 to the Red Men.

Virtually every pre match thread is littered with quotes similar to "This could be a potential banana skin" - such a confident lot on here

sh*t, included that myself.

Virtually every pre match thread is littered with quotes similar to "This could be a potential banana skin" - such a confident lot on here

To be fair Palace are a team who've given us a fair bit of grief in recent years and they've got a player in Benteke who's always done well against us. So there's merit to the trepidation I just think we'll beat them though we're on such a good run now and I just don't see it ending this weekend.

Love the lunchtime starts,i can't get my ass motivated to get to the pub for 10 a.m anymore so this is perfect.As long as the annoying hippy woman doesn't show up chatting sh*te like last week.The Iranian barca fans were o.k mind.Anyways let's beat these easy, please no dodgy last 10 minutes this week.

We really should be winning this game comfortably and I expect we will.

Can't help but think to myself that this season is turning out to be like nothing we've ever seen before.
So, whatever happened last season against the likes of Palace means jack sh*t to me right now..

Pardew will be shitting himself..fact
No one wants to play us right now. fact
There is no other team in this league who plays with a quick speed rotating front 3/4 like we do. fact
We are becoming a very well oiled machine and it's gonna get better.. fact

Wouldn't surprise me if Pardew threw the Maureen dice and put 5 across the back with Benchteke up on his own.
That's fine, we will find a way through..

2 - 0 Lallana and Mane
 

Glad it's the later kick off... I'm gonna go for 2-1, Firmino and Gigi, Benteke for them.

We're gonna win, win, win.  There's nobody for us to fear.  Whatever they've got planned, we've planned better.

Every game is a banana skin.  Every game is a must win.  No game is a guaranteed win.  We have a plan for them all.

Come at us - we'll destroy you.  Sit back and defend - we'll destroy you.  Score against us - we'll score more.  What happened in previous seasons - irrelevant.  You have Benteke - we have Firmino, Coutinho, Mane and Lallana.  You have Pardew - we have Klopp.

You're fu**ed - we win and the Reds go marching on, on, on!!!!

I'm not much of a gambler, but if I was I'd put money on these:

1.  We won't keep a clean sheet
2.  Benteke will score
3.  Liverpool will win

A little inspiration from a born winner:

https://goo.gl/images/QOaqoc

Let's keep this train rolling!! 

 

Fixtures can't come quick enough at the moment, I find myself constantly looking forward to our next game. I guess that's what happens when you're playing well and getting the results to match.

We have to take advantage of the fact that Palace haven't been getting the results they wanted from their home league games so far this season. In the 4 games they've played their results have been: 1-0 loss vs West Brom, 1-1 draw vs Bournemouth, 4-1 win vs Stoke, 1-0 loss vs West Ham. If they want to get anywhere this season then those are games they should be winning to counter the losses they have/could experience against Spurs, Leicester, Arsenal etc.

Crystal Palace Form Guide

League Comparison

Scored:- LIV: 20 - CP: 12
Conceded:- LIV: 11 - CP: 12
GD:- LIV: +9 - CP: 0
Wins:- LIV: 6 - CP: 3
Draws:- LIV: 2 - CP: 2
Losses:- LIV: 1 - CP: 4
Points:- LIV: 20 - CP: 11
Position:- LIV: 3rd - CP: 11th
Set Piece Goals:- LIV: 7 – CP: 4
Shot Accuracy:- LIV: 56% - CP: 39%
AVG Pass Accuracy:- LIV: 84% - CP: 78%
AVG Possession:- LIV: 57% - CP: 52%
Chances Created:- LIV: 135 – CP: 99

Shots To Goals
So far this season we have had 165 shots in 9 games (18.3 per game) at a shot to goal rate of 12.1%. Palace have had 130 shots in their 9 games (14.4 per game) but have only scored 12 goals at a shot to goal rate of 9.2%.



Keep them quiet in the last 15 minutes of the game and we have a chance of coming away from there with the maximum 3 points. It’s interesting that we’ve scored an equal amount of goals in both halves. During the West Brom game the commentator (can’t remember his name) said that it’ll be interesting to see what the final score would be as we tend to score more in the 2nd half than we do in the 1st as we’re attacking towards The Kop.

Overall Form

The results from Palace’s last 10 league games both home and away…



10 games
3 wins
2 draws
5 losses
11/30 pts
13 goals
16 conceded
0 clean sheets
3 F.T.S. games (Fail To score)

The results from Palace’s last 25 games home and away…



25 games
5 wins
7 draws
13 losses
22/75 pts
28 goals
39 conceded
2 clean sheets
7 F.T.S. games

This should give you an idea of how good Palace have been in the league since New Year. It doesn’t make for pleasant reading if you’re a Palace fan that’s for sure. They currently sit in 11th but they’ve not played many of the top teams, I think just Spurs and Leicester and they’ve lost them both. 

They've created 99 chances (11 per game), 90 of which are key passes() but their chance to goal rate is only 11.8%.

Townsend, Puncheon & Zaha have just 2 goals and 4 assists between them. For attacking/creative midfielders they don't seem to be doing a very good job this season.

Crosses
Overall: 265 - 29.4 P.G. 
Home: 134 – 33.5 P.G.
Away: 131 – 26.2 P.G.

They've made 103 more crosses than us.

After looking at their cross attempts you won’t be surprised to see that half of their goals have been scored through headers…



…and as a result 10 of their 12 goals have been scored inside the box (83%).



Our defenders are going to have to be on their toes come Saturday. We can’t let them get cross after cross into the box, it will only take one good cross for Benteke to punish us and score. Cut out the crosses and we cut off their main source of goals and as a result we close their attack down. They’re not the most imaginative bunch either so short passes through the middle of the park isn’t something they’re used to doing.

Conceded
I have no idea what the reason is but very few of the goals that Palace have conceded have ended up high in the goal. 10 of the 12 goals have been middle to low of the goal with low left and low right being their main areas of weakness. Is their keeper about 90 or something?



They’ve conceded goals from various distances this season, they range from anywhere between 3 to 22+ yards. It seems they’re not particular specialised in stopping goals from certain areas/distances.



I guess it means that one of Coutinho’s beauties isn’t out of the question, especially when you see that half of the goals they’ve conceded have come from right footers.


Home Form

This season…


4 games
1 win
1 draw
2 losses
4/12 pts
5 goals
4 conceded
0 clean sheets
2 F.T.S. games

Last 10 games...


10 games
3 wins
2 draws
5 losses
11/30 pts
10 goals
10 conceded
2 clean sheets
4 F.T.S. games


Basically, I think Palace will win 6-0

Edit: As you can see, I had too much time on my hands tonight

F***ing dread playing Crystal Palace.

Still think we'll win though.