Crystal Palace v Newcastle United preview – Selhurst Park awaits | OneFootball

Crystal Palace v Newcastle United

Saturday 30 November – A 3pm kick-off

The travelling Toon Army will be making the long trip down to London this Saturday for an away match, with a struggling Crystal Palace team desperate for three points having not enjoyed the best of starts to their Premier League season.

Palace currently sit in the relegation places having only enjoyed one win all season, whilst Newcastle are in 10th position having achieved five victories.

A traditional 3pm kick off has been something of a rarity this term with the last five Toon games in all competitions being selected for live TV. We’ve played only three other matches at this day and time all season, winning one and losing two.

Newcastle have won two of their past six Premier League matches (Arsenal 1-0 and Forest 3-1) with three defeats (Brighton 1-0, Chelsea 2-1 and West Ham 2-0) and one draw (Everton 0-0). This run of form has racked up just seven points, scoring five goals and conceding six.

A good run is now needed to fire us towards the European places, especially with how tight the Premier League table is and the busy festive fixture list meaning the matches come thick and fast.

Palace have won one of their last six matches and this is their only win of the season so far (Spurs at home 1-0), they’ve drawn two (Villa and Wolves away both 2-2) and lost three (Fulham, Forest and Liverpool) without scoring a goal. They’ve scored six goals and conceded nine. They will be confident of pulling away from the bottom three, especially if they can replicate their performance against Aston Villa which saw them very unlucky not to win.

Newcastle played host to West Ham on Monday night and were left desperately disappointed as goals at the start of each half condemned them to a 2-0 defeat. This was only our third home defeat of the calendar year and the first time we’ve lost by more than one goal at home since an equally poor 3-1 loss to Forest last boxing day. Much more is needed at both ends of the pitch if the Toon are serious about contending for a place in Europe.

Crystal Palace went away to Aston Villa and took the lead twice before having to settle for a 2-2 draw in one of their better performances of the season. Palace can take heart from this and, coupled with a win against Spurs, will feel they can go toe-to-toe with the better teams in the division.

Stat Attack!

Toon have won just once in their last nine matches away to Crystal Palace.

NUFC have failed to find the net in five of their last six visits to Selhurst Park.

Newcastle’s last win at Crystal Palace came four years ago almost to the day. Goals from Wilson and Joelinton secured a 2-0 win on 27th November 2020. This match was played behind closed doors, meaning NUFC fans have had to wait ten years to witness an away win at Crystal Palace, a 3-2 League Cup victory (after extra time) in 2014.

Newcastle have achieved five Premier League victories away at Palace, drawing five and losing just three.

Memorable match

When Newcastle beat Palace 2-1 in 1997, it was a match that would be talked about for years! Strikes from Ketsbaia and Tomasson put the Toon two goals to the good before our opponents pulled one back to set up a nervy finish.

The reason this match went down in history is that it was the last time Newcastle won in London, before going on a no victories run for over four years! Every time the Toon travelled to the big smoke this match was referenced along with some tedious ‘Capital punishment’ headlines in the local papers.

Thankfully, Sir Bobby consigned our rotten London luck to the history books when coming back to beat Arsenal 3-1 in Dec 2001 and repeated the trick with an equally impressive 3-1 win away to Spurs a month later.

Played for both

Andros Townsend signed for Rafa Benitez and the Toon in 2016 and scored four goals in our fruitless attempt to avoid demotion to the Championship. He soon jumped ship and played five seasons for Palace. Ironically his finest moment in a black and white shirt came in a 1-0 home win against Crystal Palace when he whipped a free kick into the top corner to ensure victory.

Yohan Cabaye was a fan favourite after signing for the Toon in 2011. He even had a chant in his honour threatening a riot from supporters should he be sold by NUFC! A scorer of some superb goals (including a cracking freekick in a 3-0 win over Man Utd in 2012), it was a sad day when he signed for PSG in January 2014. Eighteen months later he’d be reunited with former manager Alan Pardew as he spent three years at Crystal Palace.

Shola Ameobi is best remembered for being a Mackem slayer having scored an incredible seven derby day goals in twelve appearances whilst with NUFC, a record bettered only by Jackie Milburn. He signed for Palace in 2015 but failed to find the net in just four appearances.

Managers

Eddie Howe after a miserable 2-0 defeat at home to West Ham –

“I don’t think anything takes me by surprise in the Premier League, we know every team has qualities. We were the dominant team at half-time and the game would have been very different if we had equalised before the first half. I’m pretty pleased with the first 60 minutes albeit we’re losing the game 2-0. We opened them up and had chances to score. Up to that point I was pretty pleased but the last 30 minutes I didn’t enjoy. We tried a bit too hard to score. We’ll rue that when we watch the game back. For both goals we know we made individual mistakes. It was disappointing from our perspective. Very uncharacteristic from us because we’ve defended well in recent weeks”

Oliver Glasner after a 2-2 draw away to Aston Villa –

“I’m very proud of the team performance. We’re missing some key players in attack but we still scored two amazing goals. I’m very proud how they played together, worked together, fight together and believed in getting a point here. Overall it was a good performance for us and we go home very pleased with the point.”

Charity

As it is an away match, Newcastle United fans will not be collecting opposite the Gallowgate end, for the food bank. However, you can still help out and all online cash donations are very much appreciated. For further info and/or to donate to the food bank online go HERE.

I think this could be a fairly nervy encounter.

Newcastle weren’t at the races at all on Monday night when losing to West Ham and need to put things right ahead of the hectic Christmas schedule.

I don’t think it’ll be pretty but I’m backing us to do just enough to bring the points home: