We look ahead to Sunday’s Premier League game at Stamford Bridge with our Chelsea vs Crystal Palace prediction and preview. Can the Eagles find a first win of the campaign?
Chelsea vs Crystal Palace Stats: The Key Insights
- The Opta supercomputer backs Chelsea to triumph in a dominant 56.4% of pre-match simulations against Crystal Palace.
- Chelsea have won each of their last 13 Premier League games against Palace.
- Cole Palmer has been involved in more Premier League goals since the start of last season than any other player (37).
Enzo Maresca will get his first taste of a London derby when Chelsea host Crystal Palace in Sunday’s Premier League clash at Stamford Bridge.
Italian head coach Maresca registered the first win of his Blues tenure last time out as Noni Madueke’s second-half hat-trick helped Chelsea to a remarkable 6-2 victory away at Wolves.
That crushing triumph at Molineux was the 21st time Chelsea have scored 6+ goals in a single Premier League game, with only Manchester City doing so more often in the competition’s history (22).
However, Maresca must be warned that the last two times the Blues have netted six or more goals, defeat has followed in their next league match (4-2 vs Arsenal in April 2022 and 5-0 vs Arsenal in April 2024).
Madueke will be expecting to start on the right-hand side after becoming the 23rd different player to score a Premier League hat-trick for the club. That is more unique hat-trick scorers than any other side in the competition’s history.
Another definite inclusion will be Cole Palmer, who scored one and assisted all three of Madueke’s goals to take his goal involvements in the league to 37 since the start of last season. With 23 goals and 14 assists, no top-flight player can match the heights of the England playmaker in that period.
In the same time, Palmer has also both scored and assisted a goal in more different games in the competition than any other player (6), though he was unable to make an impact in Chelsea’s opening game at Stamford Bridge – a 2-0 loss to Man City.
Chelsea have not lost their first two at home in a single campaign since 1978-79, however, and will fancy their chances of a maiden win on home soil against a struggling Palace.
Palace have lost both their opening league matches this season, following up a 2-1 disappointment away to Brentford with a 2-0 home loss against West Ham, another capital city rival. Tomás Soucek and Jarrod Bowen did the damage for the Hammers last Saturday, leaving manager Oliver Glasner with much to ponder.
Glasner will expect his Eagles to come good, though, having only lost three of their 13 Premier League games under the Austrian after he replaced Roy Hodgson towards the end of the last campaign.
Central to any Palace hopes of recovery will be Eberechi Eze, who was involved in more shots than any other player in the first two rounds of Premier League games this season (16 – 12 shots, 4 chances created).
Despite those impressive exploits, the forward-thinking Eze is yet to register a goal or assist in the league, though he created one and scored another in Tuesday’s 4-0 hammering of Norwich City in the EFL Cup.
That victory over Championship side Norwich came at a cost, though, with new signing Chadi Riad limping off with a knee injury. The defender was set to play a key role in Palace’s defence, having lost Joachim Andersen to Fulham, alongside continued speculation over a move to Newcastle United for Marc Guéhi.
Matheus França is Palace’s only other confirmed absentee, but that will matter for little with Jean-Philippe Mateta leading the line, fresh off the back of another two goals – including a spectacular overhead kick – against Norwich.
As for Chelsea’s team news, injury-plagued Reece James remains out until mid-September with a thigh issue, while Roméo Lavia’s hamstring problem remains a concern for Maresca. A much-changed Blues were 2-1 losers to Servette on Thursday, but – perhaps more importantly – escaped injury-free and are through to the Europa Conference League group stage after a 3-2 aggregate win.
Chelsea vs Crystal Palace Head-to-Head
All recent records point towards Chelsea winning this one, as they have done in their last 13 Premier League meetings with Palace.
Mykhailo Mudryk and Madueke were on target in a 2-1 victory for the Blues in the corresponding fixture last term, either side of a first-half leveller from Michael Olise, who has now moved to Bayern Munich.
Records could be in sight for Chelsea here, too, with only Manchester City (a current run of 14 against Bournemouth) ever managing a longer winning run against an opponent in English Football League history.
Palace, meanwhile, will hope for some third-time luck in London derbies this season. This will be only the fifth occasion in English top-flight history of a London club facing fellow capital-city opponents in each of their first three matches of a campaign, after West Ham in 1970-71, Wimbledon in 1991-92, Palace themselves in 2021-22, and Brentford in 2023-24.
Chelsea vs Crystal Palace Prediction
Owing to Chelsea’s strong head-to-head record and Palace’s recent struggles, the Opta supercomputer has Maresca’s hosts as the favourites.
Chelsea triumphed in a convincing 56.3% of 10,000 pre-match simulations, compared to an away victory in just 21.8%. The draw is almost as likely – at 21.7%.
A second straight league win for Maresca would only boost the optimism around Stamford Bridge, with Chelsea currently finishing fourth most often (25.2%) in Opta’s end-of-season predictions. Palace, meanwhile, end four places higher than their current position of 17th in 11.8%.
Chelsea vs Crystal Palace Predicted Lineups
Chelsea (4-2-3-1): Robert Sánchez, Malo Gusto, Wesley Fofana, Levi Colwill, Marc Cucurella, Enzo Fernández, Moisés Caicedo, Noni Madueke, Cole Palmer, Pedro Neto, Nicolas Jackson.
Crystal Palace (3-4-2-1): Dean Henderson, Chris Richards, Marc Guéhi, Nathaniel Clyne, Daniel Muñoz, Adam Wharton, Jefferson Lerma, Tyrick Mitchell, Daichi Kamada, Eberechi Eze, Jean-Philippe Mateta.
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.
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