Fighting at the bottom of the Premier League, Rob Edwards’ Hatters need a response on Saturday. We look ahead to their next game with our Crystal Palace vs Luton prediction and preview.
Crystal Palace vs Luton Stats: The Quick Hits
- Crystal Palace are backed to defeat Luton Town by the Opta supercomputer, winning 42.8% of pre-match simulations.
- Luton could complete only their fourth-ever league double over Palace.
- Eberechi Eze has scored four goals in his last four Premier League games, while he has eight in his last 10 appearances at Selhurst Park.
Match Preview
Having fought back from two goals down, Luton Town suffered a familiar fate in a late defeat to Aston Villa in their last Premier League outing. That result leaves them four points adrift of safety before Saturday’s trip to Crystal Palace.
In that defeat to Villa, Tahith Chong and Carlton Morris scored within six second-half minutes to drag Luton back to parity at Kenilworth Road, cancelling out Ollie Watkins’ early double. But Lucas Digne headed through the legs of goalkeeper Thomas Kaminski to inflict a cruel 89th-minute blow.
That last-gasp defeat, in a similar nature to Luton’s late concessions at home to both Arsenal and Liverpool earlier in the season, compounded the blow of Everton’s successful points appeal in the same week. Rob Edwards’ men trail the 16th-placed Toffees by five points and Nottingham Forest – in 17th – by four in the league table.
Not all hope is lost for last season’s Championship play-off winners, though, with Luton still boasting a game in hand before this inviting three-match run against Palace, Bournemouth and fellow strugglers Forest. The form of Morris is encouraging, too, given the bustling striker has been directly involved in eight goals (five goals, three assists) across his last seven Premier League games, twice as many as in his first 19 appearances in the competition (four).
Those attacking returns from Morris have contributed to Luton scoring 14 goals in the last 15 minutes of Premier League games this term, accounting for 38% of their overall strikes in the 2023-24 top-flight campaign. Only the current top three sides Liverpool (24), Manchester City (15) and Arsenal (15) have managed more goals in the same period of matches, while Palace have conceded more often in this timeframe than any other team (20). Maybe we can expect late drama in this game on Saturday.
Luton manager Edwards has not been aided by recent injury issues to his wounded lineup. Saturday’s trip could see the return of Joseph Johnson and Gabriel Osho, yet Mads Andersen, Amari’i Bell, Albert Sambi Lokonga, Elijah Adebayo, Dan Potts, Marvelous Nakamba and Tom Lockyer remain out.
Palace’s recent appointment of head coach Oliver Glasner, replacing veteran Roy Hodgson in the Selhurst Park dugout, paid immediate dividends in a 3-0 home victory over relegation-threatened Burnley but the resurgent Eagles were then defeated 3-1 at Tottenham.
Eberechi Eze scored his second direct free-kick goal in the Premier League for Palace, with his other coming against Leeds United in November 2020. However, that dazzling second-half opener was not enough as Spurs levelled in the 77th minute through Timo Werner before Cristian Romero and Son Heung-Min snatched a comeback win at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
Despite the optimism surrounding former Wolfsburg and Eintracht Frankfurt head coach Glasner, Palace are just eight points clear of Saturday’s visitors, sitting 14th in the league table heading into this MD 28 clash. That encouragement has somewhat eased the doom and gloom around the club, who have been hampered by numerous injuries in recent weeks.
Michael Olise is not expected back from a thigh injury until the start of April, while star centre-back Marc Guéhi suffered a cruel blow to his Euro 2024 hopes with a knee issue that could keep him out until early May. Cheick Doucouré remains a sore miss in midfield, likely remaining unavailable until the end of the season after snapping his Achilles tendon, while Rob Holding and Jesurun Rak-Sakyi are also sidelined.
With Olise out for the foreseeable future and Jordan Ayew also a doubt after a knock to his hip against Spurs, the attacking burden will continue to fall on Jean Philippe-Mateta and Eze. The latter has scored four goals in his last four Premier League games, while he has eight in his last 10 appearances at Selhurst Park stretching back to last April.
If reported Manchester United and Chelsea target Eze can deliver once again, Glasner will hope to become just the second manager to win both of his first two Premier League home games with Palace, after Tony Pulis in December 2013.
Yet the new Palace boss must be wary of the attacking threat Luton will pose at the other end through wing-back Alfie Doughty, whose five assists from set-pieces this Premier League season can only be bettered by West Ham’s dead-ball specialist James Ward-Prowse (six).
Crystal Palace vs Luton: Head-to-Head
This will be Palace’s first home league game against Luton since February 2007 in the Championship – a 2-1 win – and first in the top flight since a 1-1 draw in February 1992.
Yet after their 2-1 win in November when Michael Olise’s stunner cancelled out Teden Mengi’s opener before a late Jacob Brown winner, Luton could complete only their fourth-ever league double over Palace, after 1936-37 (third division south), 1973-74 (second tier), and 2005-06 (Championship).
Palace have won four of their five Premier League games against promoted sides this season, though the exception was the aforementioned loss at Luton’s Kenilworth Road in the reverse fixture.
The last promoted team to achieve the double over the Eagles was Sheffield United in 2019-20 – could the Hatters do it here?
Recent Form
Luton have lost each of their last four Premier League games, against Aston Villa, Liverpool, Manchester United and Sheffield United, though Saturday’s visitors haven’t lost five league matches in a row since November 2019 in the Championship.
In the top flight, Luton last had a longer losing run within a single season from November-December 1974 (six games). Palace have won three of their last four Premier League games at Selhurst Park (L1), as many as their previous 13 beforehand (D5 L5).
The Eagles have scored exactly three goals in each of those three wins – against Burnley, Sheff Utd and Brentford – after having only scored 3+ goals in three of their previous 31 home league matches prior to this.
Yet it may not be straightforward for Glasner’s hosts considering Palace have already dropped 16 points from winning positions in the Premier League this season, only losing more in 2004-05 (18), 1992-93 (17) and 2021-22 (17).
Crystal Palace vs Luton Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system that assigns an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off this weekend, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
Crystal Palace vs Luton Prediction
The Opta supercomputer predicts another move in the right direction for Glasner’s new-look Palace, who triumphed in 42.8% of 10,000 data-led simulations prior to Saturday’s kick-off.
Luton secured a much-needed victory to stop the rot of four straight defeats in 29.4% of the supercomputer’s forecasts, with the draw also predicted at 27.8%.
In Opta’s end-of-season simulations, Luton are still backed as the third favourites for relegation at 74.6%, only behind Burnley (99.4%) and Sheffield United (99.7%). Palace, meanwhile, are forecast to finish 15th – one place below their current league-table position – most often (24.6%).
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