After having been quite significantly talked up before this season started, Crystal Palace go into their home match against Manchester United still looking for their first Premier League win of the season.
By Ian King
Palace have taken just two points from their first four matches so far, and while it remains unlikely that they will be sucked into a relegation fight, supporters will not be wanting to wait until October to get things moving.
There is room for optimism, most notably that they did a League double over United last season, with an aggregate score of 5-0. But then again Manchester United have run up an aggregate score of 10-0 in their last two matches. Admittedly, that combined scoreline came against Southampton, one of the two weakest teams in their division so far, and Barnsley, who are in League One, but confidence counts for a lot at this level of the game, and if whacking seven goals past League One opposition, as they did on Tuesday night, works for them, it works for them.
Trevoh Chalobah faces a fitness test, but otherwise there are no known new injury issues for Oliver Glasner to have to deal with. Adam Wharton and Cheick Doucoure may return in midfield in place of Daichi Kamada and Jefferson Lerma. Up front, Eddie Nketiah is still awaiting his first goal for the Eagles. Top scorer with two of their four goals so far – Own Goal is joint second – is Jean-Philippe Mateta for his brace against Leicester City last weekend, when a stoppage-time penalty was required to salvage a point after they’d fallen 2-0 behind.
Manchester United may have that 10-0 aggregate score over their last two matches, but they’re also 10th in the Premier League following a patchy start to the season. Their opening day win against Fulham was uninspiring, their performances against Brighton and Liverpool were poor and abysmal respectively, and those big two wins were both against the weakest opposition that they’ll likely face all season.
To that end, this match is more of a test for Erik ten Hag than it at first looks. So far, if you squint hard enough, United’s season has kind of gone the way you’d have expected to. Not quite the darkest timeline, but still not… great. But Crystal Palace can be volatile, as United found to their cost last season. And Palace really do need to get their season going.
(Cover image from IMAGO)
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