Palace Preview – Aston Villa

An inform Newcastle side exhibited Palace’s key weaknesses at Selhurst on Saturday. However, this should hopefully give Tony Pulis an idea of where we need to strengthen most ahead of the transfer window.

We move on to our Boxing Day trip to Villa Park as we begin another difficult patch of games with the distinct possibility of finding ourselves out of the bottom three should we manage to grab a win.

The most recent meeting was Valentines Day 2010 in the FA Cup 4th round. Another memorable Darren Ambrose goal (a fantastic 37 yard free kick) saw Palace hold Villa to a 2-2 draw after seeing off Wolves in the previous round.

But Villa made home advantage count in the return fixture and Neil Warnock’s Palace side bowed out of the competition.

Aston Villa brought in six new faces over the summer including Czech Striker Libor Kozak, Danish Defender Jores Okore and Bulgarian left back Aleksander Tonev. Striker Kozak has netted four times this season which has been helpful in the absence of Christian Benteke who has missed several games through injury.

After a fantastic opening game win over Arsenal at the Emirates where they came back from a goal down, they have hit a rocky patch of late having only won five games so far and sit in thirteenth place. However, boss Paul Lambert has been lamenting Villa’s home form having only won two at Villa Park and will be looking to the Boxing Day clash with Palace to help turn their fortunes around. They will continue to be without N’Zogbia and Okore while midfielder Westwood is suspended. Benteke, Vlaar and Bennett are all doubtful.

Team news for Palace is that Jonathan Parr will be pushing for a start after making his Premier League debut replacing Dean Moxey after a somewhat lack lustre performance. Joel Ward may return to his usual position after a his stint in midfield after injuries to both KG and O’Keefe who are both doubtful for this one.

Long term absentees Guedioura, McCarthy, Thomas, Hunt and Murray are all out and Chamakh also misses out after receiving his fifth booking against Newcastle.

The Villa players to look out for are Fabian Delph and Ciaran Clark who are both in good form at the moment. The home team are very strong at counter attacking which suggests that they are better off playing away. They are also very good at coming back from a losing position. Meanwhile, they have not been great at keeping posession of the ball, avoiding fouling in dangerous areas or defending from attacks down the wings.

In contrast you have Mile Jedinak and Joel Ward playing very well for Palace.  The visitors are strong in ariel duels and stealing the ball from the opposition. But like Villa we are poor at keeping posession so something will have to change in this particular match up.

The Eagles Beak prediction is a 1-1 draw which would perhaps be welcome point for both teams. 

The last five meetings between the two teams are in favour of Villa who have won two and two draws. Three of those games have been at Villa Park where Palace have only managed one draw and lost the other two.

24/02/2010 – FA Cup – Aston Villa 3-1 Crystal Palace

14/02/2010 – FA Cup – Crystal Palace 2-2 Aston Villa

03/01/2005 – League – Crystal Palace 2-0 Aston Villa

25/09/2004 – League – Aston Villa 1-1 Crystal Palace

03/12/2003 – League Cup – Aston Villa 3-0 Crystal Palace

 

Article written by Adam Johnson with statistics from Holmesdale Online and Who Scored

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