This weekend’s match at Selhurst Park sees two sides that were eliminated from the League Cup when fourth Manchester United travel to seventh-placed Crystal Palace on Saturday.
Palace will be looking to bounce back from a disappointing week suffering a 1-0 loss to Leicester City in the league and being played off the park by Manchester City in the League Cup losing 5-1. They struggled to get any attacking momentum against Leicester and will need to rectify this if they want to continue their good form so far this season.
United also had a week of disappointing results. In their encounter in the Premier League, they drew with rivals City 0-0 in what was a disappointing game for both sides with neither properly finding their footing in the game. Meanwhile in the League Cup they lost to Middlesbrough 3-1 on penalties after the game finished 0-0 after extra time.
Key Battle – Anthony Martial vs Crystal Palace’s Central defence
Martial has had a remarkable start to his United career scoring three goals in his six matches. This is something that the Palace defenders have to be careful with. They managed to deal with the Vardy issue last week relatively well only conceding a goal when Brede Hangeland made a mistake trying to clear the ball.
The difference between Leicester and United is that they will not continue to try just one way of getting the ball into the Martial and they will vary their approach, so the Palace defence will have to be proactive in dealing with the threat that the French striker possess.
Team News
Palace will be sweating on the fitness of four key players heading into the United clash with Yannick Bolasie, Jason Puncheon, Yohan Cabaye and Pape Souare all in doubt for the clash with the Red Devils. The first three picked up injuries in the League Cup clash with City, but at this time they are all expected to be fit in time for the match on Saturday.
Manchester United should be able to name an unchanged line-up from the Manchester derby with no new injuries or suspensions to deal with.
Head-to-Head
In the 32 previous meetings between the sides Manchester United have the unsurprising advantage with 20 wins compared to Palace’s six wins with six games also ending in draws.
Previous Meetings
The last meeting between the two sides saw United win 2-1 at Selhurst Park with goals for Juan Mata and Marouane Fellaini scoring for United while Palace’s only goal came from Jason Puncheon.
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Prediction
With the history of this clash, the quality of players the United have at their disposal and the fact that United have won the last four meetings in a row it is hard to see anything other than a Red Devils win. However, Palace should have the ability to take the game to United and hopefully given a good account of themselves.
Crystal Palace 0 Manchester United 2
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