There is one match left in the current round of Premier League fixtures and it comes on Monday night when Crystal Palace host Sunderland in a pretty key match for both sides.
A win for Crystal Palace will move them into the top six and just six points off leaders Leicester while Sunderland will go above Bournemouth with a win and be just one point from safety so both have plenty to play for.
Palace had a brilliant win over Liverpool prior to the international break and that win was given extra significance with what Liverpool did to Man City on Saturday evening so Pardew’s men should have their tails up going into this game.
Big Sam hasn’t yet had the desired effect in the Sunderland hotseat although the Everton game aside they have been harder to beat which is a positive for them. They now need to turn competitive performances into wins if they are to stay in the division.
Palace look likely to be without Dwight Gayle for this match as he has a hamstring injury. Marouane Chamakh is back though having recovered from a similar problem. Bakary Sako is expected to miss the match as is Kwesi Appiah.
Sunderland hope to have Lee Cattermole back after he missed their last match against Southampton. John O’Shea also missed that match but he did play for Ireland last week and should be good to go here.
For the most part Monday night matches haven’t really got going this season and I’m not convinced this one is going to either. Much like West Ham, Palace are better on the road these days than at home and Sunderland are just useless in many ways really.
Palace have only scored four goals in their last five matches so they are struggling a bit for goals at the minute which makes me like the unders a bit more here. I was reluctant to play them after Sunderland’s drubbing at Everton recently but we’ve seen Everton go into free scoring mode since then so I’ll let them off that.
We know Big Sam likes to keep things tight on the road and Palace might take a bit longer to break Sunderland down that perhaps they would like with them missing a bit of pace up top so I will take under 2.5 goals here.
Back Under 2.5 goals for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Betfair
Blog football YTD: -32.51pts
