Arsenal v Crystal Palace – Preview & Predicted Score as former captains face-off

Arsenal’s clash with Crystal Palace this evening has seen much of the focus in the build-up surrounding the fact that two of our club’s former captains will be going head-to-head.

Patrick Vieira was the captain of our famous Invincibles side of 2004, which under Arsene Wenger managed to remain unbeaten for the entire Premier League season, a feat no other club has come close to achieving.

Now he is looking to make a name for himself in a managerial sphere, and has impressed so far this season in making his Palace side extremely difficult to beat, with only Chelsea and Liverpool having managed to defeat them in the league thus far.

Vieira’s side have already beaten the likes of Tottenham this term, but delving into their form a little deeper you will notice that they are actually winless away from Selhurst Park, and I would expect that statistic to remain beyond the day.

After a rocky start to the season, the Gunners will no longer be taken lightly either. We did take three painful defeats from our opening three matches, but returned with three straight wins of our own, before a hard-fought stalemate with Brighton after that.

While neither manager will be confident of an easy victory this evening, you would have to believe that with home advantage there will be no excuses for Arsenal failing to win this one.

This will be our first opportunity to get a better look at former target Odsonne Edouard, who we have been strongly linked with in recent seasons, with him having secured a permanent move to Palace over the summer from Celtic. He already showed his ability when scoring a quickfire double to down our noisy neighbours Spurs, and we could well look to reignite our interest in him in the coming years.

I’m relying on him not causing our sturdy defence any issues this evening however, as I believe Aaron Ramsdale and his backline will be focused on keeping a clean sheet this evening, with today’s game likely to be won in defence as I do not expect too many goals.

I feel as though today’s match has a 1-0 win written all over it, with both sides likely to cancel each other out for large spells, with our star-power shining through when it matters.

What are your predictions for today’s clash?

Patrick

Tags arsenal v crystal palace Crystal Palace Patrick Vieira

18 Comments

  1. Arsenal went 0 and 3 with a tough schedule injury and illness said to be strong factors. 4 much softer games saw 10 points from 12 the best in the league. The top 11 and 3 subs now form a settled 14 man squad. Two winnable home games v Palace and Villa round out our first quarter of the season. Win both games and we could go 7th. Drop points and we may be 11th/12th. Should be a great game . Arsenal to win 7-4

    1. We could win both and still be 9th/10th too….depends on other results or do you think every team above us will just lose their next 2 games?

      Let’s be reasonable

  2. I’m hoping for a 2-0 win for us but games tonight and Friday night are not great for either the players or the fans. At least both games are on Sky though.

  3. Palace’s nuts are tough to break under our former Mr. Invisible. And our settled defense are working towards clean sheets after clean sheets . So i expect 0-0 or our Arsenal will edge pass Palace with 1 goal with clean sheet on our side.

  4. Arsenal urge for a top 4 spot in the league, so they have no business to lose focus. Each game they play has to be a win, nothing less or worse. Arsenal fight and fight till the end. Go WIN the game.

  5. Palace are still not settled in , so i think we may get a big win here if we can get stuck in early and take control.
    But your 1-0 seems about right otherwise.

  6. only one of the two former players mentioned was a Captain, in the truest sense of the word, whereas the other was simply one of Wenger’s locker room stooges, like his fine collecting partner Merts

  7. All depends on which Arsenal arteta is moulding and shows up .. if it’s the first half against Spurs we should win by 2 goals if it’s the burnley or Brighton lot then likely in for a tough evening which could go either way but more likely ending in a tepid draw

  8. If we loose or draw tonight, the xakha brigades will come out in large numbers saying ” we’re missing him and our midfield wasn’t balance”” or they’ll put blame on Mike.

  9. I think if the Gunners play very well in the match seizing on the goals scoring chances they’ll create and the ones that accidentally falls to them in the game, but abhorred becoming wasteful in front of goal in their shootings at goal to consequently profigated, Arsenal will win the match by 3 goals to nil at fulltime. I predict this big match win for Arsenal because the current Arsenal team-squad as being constitutefd is far a better team-squad in terms of quality in all aspects of a strong team built EPL Campaign far up than the current Crystal Palace team-squad that Patrick Viera their manager will bring to the Ems tonight to face Arsenal in a week 8 EPL match encounter.

    But one important thing that i will want to see the Gunners adhere to throughout the entire course of playing this match is alertness. The Gunners should be alert always in the game but not go complacent even for a second that could make the Eagles of CP to have a chance to score. But marshal them out defensively from the game foiling every their up field moves as they make them during the match.

  10. I think if the Gunners play very well in the match seizing on the goals scoring chances they’ll create and the ones that accidentally falls to them in the game and score to abhorred becoming wasteful in front of goal in their shooting attempts at goal to avoid profigacy in front of goal, Arsenal will win the match by 3 goals to nil at fulltime.

    I predict this big match win for Arsenal because the current Arsenal team-squad as being recently constitutefd last summer window is far a better team-squad in terms of quality in all aspects of a strong team built for the EPL Campaign, far up than the current Crystal Palace team-squad that Patrick Viera their manager will bring to the Ems tonight to face Arsenal in a week 8 EPL match encounter.

    But one important thing that i will want to see the Gunners adhere to throughout the entire course of playing this match is alertness. The Gunners should be alert always in the game but not go complacent even for a second that could make the Eagles of CP to have a chance to score. But marshal them out defensively from the game foiling every of their up field moves as they make them during the match.

  11. This is a game somehow difficult to predict. Our strikers did well on international duty but the hardly performs well after Int break. I see a very slim victory for Arsenal 1:0 or 2:0. Our defense should be able to hold off Eduardo or Benteke. Tomihero would be needed to assist Ben White because of his height.

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