Crystal Palace vs Man Utd – Match Preview

Article by e-Manchester United Correspondent Tony Gillies

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So after a nice sunshine break in Dubai for the players, hopefully they’ll come back nice and refreshed for the trip to Selhurst Park, we have many memories of matches played in South London, The infamous Cantona Kung-Fu kick on a spectator in 1995, only a year previous to that the Frenchman scored a fantastic volley against Wimbledon en route to winning the FA Cup and who can forget David Beckham’s goal from the halfway line in 1996 that too coming against Wimbledon. Our last visit to Selhurst Park against Crystal Palace was back in March of 2005 the game finishing in a 0-0 draw. Our last league defeat to Palace was back in 1991 when the Eagles ran out 3-0 winners and let’s be honest the amount of teams that have erased long unbeaten records against us this season, you’d be a fool to think it’s not possible.

United go into this match without a win in three matches, the defeat at Stoke was followed by a 2-2 home draw with Fulham and a much improved defensive display at the Emirates saw us leave with a point following a 0-0 draw, hopefully that display and the sunshine break will help us end the season strongly, even though I believe fourth spot is gone, that’s no excuse to just see this season out, we need to end the season strongly to give us a little bit of hope and something to build on for the start of next season.

Crystal Palace are a changed team since the arrival of Tony Pulis, they look hard to beat, they are set up really well and gave Arsenal a slight fright at the Emirates last month before being undone by a Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain brace and let’s not forget they probably gave the third best visiting performance at the Ethiad this season, behind Bayern Munich and Chelsea only losing by one goal to nil, I thought they deserved at least a point out of that game. So I expect Saturday to be another match where it’s going to take time to break them down and we may have to be patient and be careful when they counter attack, with players in form like Jason Puncheon, Joe Ledley and Marouane Chamakh, we could be in for a good game of attacking football.

Last 5 Meetings – All Competitions

Sept 2013: Man Utd 2-0 Crystal Palace
Nov 2011: Man Utd 1-2 Crystal Palace (AET)
March 2005: Crystal Palace 0-0 Man Utd
Dec 2004: Man Utd 5-2 Crystal Palace
Nov 2004: Man Utd 2-0 Crystal Palace

Predictions

Starting XI – De Gea, Rafael, Vidic, Ferdinand, Evra, Januzaj, Carrick, Fellaini, Mata, Rooney, van Persie.

@e_ManchesterUtd – Crystal Palace 0-1 Man Utd
@e_Crystal Palace – Crystal Palace 1-1 Man Utd

Fans Predictions

This week, we welcome our first non-United predictor and it comes from Chris Fogden, a Crystal Palace supporter who is going for a massive 5-0 win to the Eagles (a bit of tounge in cheek – we think…)

And to heat up the prediction competition amongst fans, Manchester United supporter @JANU7AJ is predicting a 3-0 win to United.

So it looks as if the fans are expecting a goal glut either way. Do you agree with them? What are your predictions for the game?

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