Football Results

Two London based teams will meet in the last Saturday’s match of the 30th round of English Premier League where reigning champion Chelsea currently occupies the fifth place in the table and has even 26 points more than 18th-placed Crystal Palace. However, both teams are in bad shape ahead of their match, and it should be added that Crystal Palace somewhat unexpectedly won their last two head-to-head.

Chelsea

It should be just an additional motive for Chelsea players who are anyway in deep crisis and urgently need a victory in order to re-establish their self-confidence. Besides, Chelsea lags behind 4th-placed Tottenham for even five points, meaning it could easily not reach the Champions League. In this competition Chelsea will face Barcelona at the Camp Nou in just four day where will play the 2nd round of 16 leg. The first match with Barcelona played at the Stamford Bridge had ended as 1-1 draw.

Before the match with Barca, the Blues routinely reached the quarter-final of FA Cup after eliminated second-division Hull, but the situation in the Premier League is not rosy as out of last five matches Chelsea lost even four and won just one. In two previous rounds it lost away to both Manchester teams, meaning it has strong imperative to win this match with the Palace, regardless that due to injuries still cannot count on stopper Luiz and midfielders Kante, Bakayoko and Barkley.

Probable lineups Chelsea: Courtois – Azpilicueta, Christensen, Rudiger – Moses, Drinkwater, Fabregas, Alonso – Willian, Hazard – Morata

Crystal Palace

Although Crystal Palace has very nice experiences with city rival Chelsea recently, right now the whole team is nervous about the coming match given their three-game losing streak. The negative series has again pulled them down to the drop zone, although at the moment Crystal Palace has minimal backlog behind teams that are above it in the table, and its fans still believe that their team can avoid the worst case scenario i.e. relegation to the Football League Championship.

To achieve that Crystal Palace must urgently start winning points and we expect to face very strong Chelsea with brave and offensive tactic, regardless that manager Hodgson still has huge problem with injuries of his players. On the injured list are currently goalkeeper Speroni, stoppers Dann and Sakho, midfielders Punchon and Loftus-Cheek and forwards Zaha, Sako and Wickham, while for the Saturday’s match are questionable not fully recovered defender Ward and midfielder Cabaye.

Probable lineups Crystal Palace: Hennessey – Fosu-Mensah, Kelly, Tomkins, van Aanholt – Townsend, Milivojevic, McArthur, Schlupp – Benteke, Sorloth

Verdict:

Although the Blues lost even four matches in last five rounds they are nevertheless great favourites to win the city derby with 18th-placed Crystal Palace. However, in just four days Chelsea will play a very difficult match in the Champions League and it is perhaps the most realistic to play on plenty of goals in this one.

Pick:  over 2.5 goals 1.72 - 72/100 @1XBet