We look ahead to Friday’s Premier League action at Selhurst Park with our Crystal Palace vs Tottenham prediction and preview. Will Ange Postecoglou’s team go five points clear at the summit?
Crystal Palace vs Tottenham: The Quick Hits
- The Opta supercomputer predicts Tottenham to be favourites for Friday’s London derby, but Crystal Palace have a fighting chance, with Spurs given a 44.4% chance of victory.
- Tottenham are unbeaten in their last five Premier League trips to fellow London clubs (two wins, three draws), their best such run since enjoying a seven-match unbeaten streak between October 1992 and December 1993.
- This will be Roy Hodgson’s 500th match in charge of an English club in all competitions. The Palace boss lost his 100th and 200th games before winning his 300th and 400th.
Match Preview
The Ange-ball revolution continued as Tottenham swept Fulham aside on Monday, returning to the top of the Premier League table with a 2-0 victory. Ange Postecoglou’s team face a short turnaround before taking on another London rival this week, but Friday’s trip to Crystal Palace offers them the chance to go five points clear of Manchester City and Arsenal at the start of Matchday 10.
These are heady days for Spurs, whose return of 23 points from nine matches represents their best start to a top-flight campaign since their title-winning 1960-61 season (27 points, converted to three for a win). Only eight teams have ever won more than 23 points from their first nine games of a Premier League season, with four going on to become champions, three finishing second and one coming third.
Postecoglou also broke the record for the most points collected in a manager’s first nine Premier League games, surpassing Guus Hiddink at Chelsea in 2009 and Mike Walker at Norwich City in 1992 (both 22 points). However, he insists there is still work to be done. Son Heung-min and James Maddison punished two Calvin Bassey errors in Spurs’ latest win, but Postecoglou said his men were “nowhere near” their usual performance levels in a flat second half.
Guglielmo Vicario made three saves as Spurs gave up some big chances, and according to Opta’s expected goals on target (xGOT) model, his figure of 3.5 goals prevented now makes him the Premier League’s top shot-stopper so far this season.
Tottenham have conceded a league-low four goals from open play, with new arrival Micky van de Ven impressing alongside Cristian Romero in defence, though they are perhaps riding their luck a bit as six teams have limited opponents to fewer open-play expected goals than Spurs (8.23 xGA) in 2023-24.
In attack, Postecoglou will again look to Maddison for creativity. He has either scored (2) or assisted (5) in each of his first five away Premier League games for Spurs, a feat only two players had previously accomplished for any club. However, both players – Manchester United’s Bruno Fernandes and Andrey Arshavin for Arsenal – failed to register a goal contribution on their sixth road trip.
Postecoglou will have Yves Bissouma available after the midfielder served a one-match ban following his sending-off at Luton Town. Brennan Johnson appeared from the bench against Fulham after recovering from injury, while Pape Matar Sarr started despite suffering from illness before the game.
Friday’s match represents another milestone for Crystal Palace boss Roy Hodgson, who will reach 500 games in charge of English clubs across all competitions. Hodgson lost when taking charge of his 100th and 200th such games (the latter coming against Tottenham), before overseeing wins in games 300 and 400.
Hodgson had nothing to celebrate on Saturday as Palace were thrashed 4-0 at Newcastle United, meaning the Eagles have only won one of their last five Premier League games, drawing two and losing two. Palace have failed to score in three of their last four, the exception being last month’s 1-0 victory over Manchester United.
Palace are struggling in attack, with injuries to chief creators Eberechi Eze and Michael Olise doing nothing to aid their cause. Their 2023-24 average of 12.8 shots per game is their second highest on record (since 1997-98) in a Premier League campaign, having managed 12.9 across 2018-19, but only Everton (5) have failed to score in more games than Palace (4) this season.
Friday’s hosts have created just 12 big chances in the Premier League this term, fewer than everyone except strugglers Burnley and Sheffield United (9 each). The sidelined Eze leads all Palace players for chances created (18) and expected assists (1.63 xA) this season, with centre-back Joachim Andersen and Jeffrey Schlupp joint-second for the former metric with nine chances created apiece.
Schlupp is doubtful for Friday’s game with a hamstring strain, but Hodgson received a double boost in midfield last week as Cheick Doucouré and Jefferson Lerma overcame knocks to start on Tyneside.
Crystal Palace vs Tottenham Head-to-Head
Tottenham have won 17 of their 28 Premier League meetings with Palace, giving them a 61% win rate against them.
Among teams they have faced at least 20 times, only against Sunderland have Spurs been more successful, winning 66% of their fixtures against the Black Cats.
Spurs can cross the River Thames knowing they have a decent record when travelling across the capital. They are unbeaten in their last five away London derbies in the Premier League (2 wins, 3 draws), their longest such run since going seven without defeat between October 1992 and December 1993 (3 wins, 4 draws).
Palace, meanwhile, have only won two of 15 top-flight London derbies since the start of last season (5 draws, 8 defeats), with both victories coming against West Ham.
Spurs had the upper hand over Palace in the Premier League last campaign, triumphing 4-0 at Selhurst Park in January and 1-0 at home in May, with Harry Kane heading the winner from Pedro Porro’s cross when the teams last met.
Recent Form
Palace were second-best against Newcastle last week, but they have generally been good at bouncing back during Hodgson’s second spell in charge. The Eagles have not lost back-to-back league games since Hodgson returned to their dugout in April.
Their last two games at Selhurst Park, though, have finished goalless – against Fulham and Nottingham Forest.
The last team to record three successive goalless draws at home in the Premier League was Queens Park Rangers, who did so in February 2013.
Tottenham are unbeaten in their last six away league games (four wins, two draws), having failed to win any of their previous seven (two draws, five losses).
They are yet to lose in five away games under Postecoglou, who could become just the second Spurs boss to go unbeaten through his first six away league games in charge, after Arthur Rowe went 12 without losing in 1949.
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 on Friday, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
Crystal Palace vs Tottenham Prediction
While the Opta supercomputer makes Tottenham favourites for Friday’s game, their chances of victory are still rated below 50%.
Across 10,000 match simulations pre-game, Tottenham won 44.4% of them. Palace took the spoils 27.0% of the time, with 28.6% finishing level.
Despite their flying start, Spurs are only given a 1.7% chance of winning the title in the supercomputer’s season predictions, with Man City (76.2%), Liverpool (12.7%) and Arsenal (8.2%) all more fancied. However, Tottenham do secure a top-four finish in 49.4% of our season simulations.
Palace are expected to finish securely in mid-table, with 12th (16.8%) their most common position.
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