Crystal Palace vs Sunderland preview

November 3, 2014
By: Nemanja Lazarevic

Palace vs SunderlandCrystal Palace will be aiming to end a poor run of results and get one over their relegation rivals when they host Sunderland, a team that last won at Selhurst Park some 19 years ago.

The Eagles appear to be paying the price for their failure to stick with Tony Pulis, a man who led the club to unimagined heights last season.

Without him, Crystal Palace are again one of the main candidates for the drop, although they do have enough quality in the ranks to avoid relegation for the second successive season.

The Eagles recovered well from back to back defeats to Arsenal and West Ham, and went on to take eight points from next four league fixtures, but the good run was short-lived.

Palace had a great chance to make amends for recent losses to Hull and Chelsea as they were two goals up at Hawthorns, but they eventually had to settle for a 2-2 draw as the Baggies scored an injury time penalty.

Neil Warnock’s charges will now see the Sunderland clash as an opportunity to return to winning ways and they are 2.15 (23/20) to succeed in their quest.

James McArthur and Damien Delaney are expected to return from injury and suspension respectively, but Scott Dann is unlikely to feature.

Probable starting line-up (4-4-1-1): Speroni – Kelly, Mariappa, Delaney, Ward – Zaha, Jedinak, McArthur, Bolasie – Chamakh – Campbell.

Sunderland needed seven Premier League fixtures to record their first win of the campaign, but five draws recorded in the opening exchanges were enough to suggest the Black Cats were pretty unfortunate not to put more points on the board.

The 3-1 home win over Stoke was widely expected to help Gus Poyet’s side turn the season around, but it appears to have had just the opposite effect.

Sunderland suffered a shocking 8-0 loss at St Mary’s immediately afterwards before they were also beaten by Arsenal at home, thus slipping into the danger zone.

This kind of situation is hardly new for the Black Cats, but they will want to leave the bottom three as soon as possible and are available at 4.00 (3/1) to end a 19-year hoodoo at Selhurst Park.

New signing Anthony Reveillere is in contention to be handed his debut, while Costel Pantilimon could start his first league game this season.

Meanwhile, Ricky Alvarez, Emmanuele Giaccherini, Sebastian Coates and Billy Jones are all unavailable through injury.

Probable starting line-up (4-1-4-1): Pantilimon – Vergini, O’Shea, Brown, van Aanholt – Cattermole – Johnson, Larrson, Rodwell, Buckley – Fletcher.

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