Crystal Palace make the trip across London tomorrow to take on Arsenal at the Emirates tomorrow, and on paper we look an easy bet to win.
The Eagles sit two places above the relegation zone currently, albeit with an 11 point advantage on Sunderland in 18th position, and have not been dragged into the dog-fight for survival as of yet.
We of course sit favourably in third place in the league, and with next to no chance of catching long-time leaders Leicester City, our main objective is now to stay within the top three, just in case Manchester City drop out of the top four. Should both City and Liverpool go onto win their respective European competitions, which will mean the club finishing in fourth will fail to secure a place in next season’s Champions League campaign.
We go into the game as odds-on favourites, and with home advantage you wouldn’t back against that, but don’t make the mistake of thinking they will give us an easy game, as they rarely do.
Palace have given us some tough matches in recent seasons, with our last three encounters having finished 2-1 in our favour. Two of those matches went into the interval at 1-1, and they certainly seem to bring their A game when they come up against us.
Our players come into the match having let a two goal lead slip last weekend, and the wide players were criticised for allowing a number of crosses to be whipped into the aerially-strong Andy Carroll, who ended the game with a hat-trick.
Arsene Wenger will most certainly have drilled his players not to allow that to happen in the coming match, with former Gunner Emmanuel Adebayor almost as equally strong in the air, and it will be interesting to see whether Alex Iwobi retains his place having been indirectly blamed for not tracking back enough last week.
Petr Cech will also be expected to be returned into the starting line-up for Sunday’s match, which will be a huge plus, and I will take another 2-1 win.
A win is a win right? Or should we be winning these sort of matches more comfortably?