Crystal Palace v Leeds United Match Thread

[Smudge3920]

Saturday 7th November 3.00pm | Selhurst Park | Live on BT Box Office


Leeds United will look to get back to winning ways on Saturday as they head to South London to take on Crystal Palace. The two sides are level on points occupying twelfth and thirteenth in the Premier League table but the capital has not been a happy hunting ground for Leeds over the past few seasons. Since their victory at QPR on December 9th 2017, they’ve taken just two points from a possible twenty-seven. The White’s last top-flight win in London was on November 29th 2003, thanks to a James Milner winner at The Valley against Charlton!

Marcelo Bielsa will still be without Diego Llorente, Kalvin Phillips who are out with injuries, Rodrigo who is isolating following a positive Covid-19 test and long term absentee Adam Forshaw who has only recently returned to training. Raphinha will face a late fitness test on Saturday morning having missed the Leicester game on Monday with an ankle injury. Pascal Struijk, Leif Davis and Oliver Casey are all likely to make the matchday squad having missed Leeds’ Under 23 clash with Newcastle on Friday. A game in which Joe Gelhardt impressed yet again but Leeds ultimately gave away a three goal lead, losing four three.

Roy Hodgson will today be without a trio of defenders on Saturday, with Tyrick Mitchell, James Tomkins and Joel Ward all sidelined. Tomkins has been working to return to fitness but suffered a setback in his recovery having rejoined training. Palace will also be without club captain Luka Milivojevic after they failed in their appeal against his red card in their defeat against Wolves. Milivojevic’s absence will give Jairo Riedewald the chance to further establish himself having been on the fringes for almost two years. Hodgson will however have Eze, Zaha and Batshuayi to call on, all who could potentially cause Leeds issues on the break.

Leeds will be looking for a response after their 4-1 defeat to Leicester City at Elland Road last time out and will face a Palace team who are likely to play in a similar wat to Leicester. Roy Hodgson’s team are likely to back and rely on their attacking players to catch Leeds out on the break. It’s a tactic Leeds have often struggled to break down but it would be fair to say Palace don’t have the quality all over the pitch that Leicester do. Palace, meanwhile, suffered defeat against Wolves last week and have won just one of their past five Premier League matches, so are also in need of a win.

Crystal Palace have had the fewest shots of any team in the Premier League, with 57 in seven games, while only Liverpool have had more than Leeds with 96. Leeds have bagged 7 goals in their 3 away Premier League matches so far this season, if Patrick Bamford can find his scoring boots, he could be amongst the goals in an away win.


Leeds United Squad
Illan Meslier, Luke Ayling, Robin Koch, Liam Cooper, Ian Poveda, Patrick Bamford, Ezgjan Alioski, Tyler Roberts, Kiko Casilla, Stuart Dallas, Helder Costa, Raphinha, Pablo Hernandez, Pascal Struijk, Jack Harrison, Leif Davis, Mateusz Klich, Jamie Shackleton, Oliver Casey.

[andrewjohnsmith]

Hoping Raphinha will be fit. That's the only possible addition. Would be nice to see him play the 10, but I'm sure Pablo will start in that role again. My guess is that he'll go back to Strujik and bench Shackleton. That'll be the only change. Raphinha off the bench. If Raph doesn't make it, could we see Gelhardt get his first seat on the bench?

[Scoobychief]

another potential banana skin

[Irish Ian]

London.

[Ellandback1]

Leeds will still be licking their wounds, following the 4-1 mauling at the hands of the Foxes on Monday night as they prepare for their trip to England's capital on Saturday afternoon.

Nobody needs to remind us what a poor record we have for wining games in London. Let's hope the ban on fans breaks the jinx.

It's a very interesting looking fixture on paper, with two respected veteran Managers going head to head

Leeds will be without record signing Rodrigo, who tested positive for covid 19 earlier in the week. The 29yo missed the home defeat against Leicester City on Monday due to going into self isolation having come into contact with a family member who had caught the deadly virus. Rodrigo will be back after the International break, fit to face Arsenal.

Phillips (Shoulder), Llorente (hamstring) join long term absentee Forshaw on the treatment table.

Raphinha will face a late fitness test. The Brazilian winger is struggling with an ankle knock he picked up in training. Sources say, he'll be unlucky to miss the trip to Selhurst Park.

Crystal Palace will be without captain Luka Milivojevic for three matches after losing his appeal (yesterday) against his red card at Wolves.

[Chilli D]

Hoping Raphinha will be fit. That's the only possible addition. Would be nice to see him play the 10, but I'm sure Pablo will start in that role again. My guess is that he'll go back to Strujik and bench Shackleton. That'll be the only change. Raphinha off the bench. If Raph doesn't make it, could we see Gelhardt get his first seat on the bench?

I hope we see Gelhardt and Greenwood make the first team squad this season.
It never quite happened for Ryan Edmondson but Greenwood and Gelhardt are different types of players to Edmondson who i think will end up with a permanent move elsewhere.

[Lumiukko]

Potential banana skin, but this season is different so who knows? We have to break our London hoodoo at sometime. Palace will play the Wolves/Leicester gameplan against us so hopefully we can be 3rd time lucky this season.

Hope Raphinha is fit, Gelhardt makes the bench, and Struijk comes into DM to release Klich back into his favoured position. I think Struijk is good enough for Crystal Palace, and will surely have a point to prove after the Villa game and getting replaced so quickly. Don't mind Pablo starting, as he may also have a point to prove, but would ideally see him as a second half replacement to torment them when tired, with Raphinha given the #10 role (most likely will end up the other way round though due to Rapha's injury concern).

[Fridge]

Feeling more hopeful about this one.

Palace tend to sit quite deep and don't create a lot of chances. They do seem to be fairly clinical though and we could struggle if they get a few counter attacks in.

We know we're good enough to win this. Has to be a 3 pointer.

[Lumiukko]

Gelhardt played today in the U23 loss to Newcastle (scored a penalty). Would suggest he won't be in tomorrow's matchday squad. Plus side, could it mean Raphinha has recovered from his ankle knock?

[lowreg11]

Want Raphinha and Costa to line the wings without Rodrigo.

Going to be a weird premier league season

https://www.sportsbetting3.com/soccer/e ... eague-odds

Zaha seems to be playing better with Eze up his arse

[Irish Ian]

Looking at what games come after this I almost put this as a must win, but Leeds in London is a whole disaster waiting to happen.

VAR will need to be kind to us tomorrow for us to get anything.

[Dynamic array]

Palace is one of only four of the present Premier League clubs not to have scored a hat trick against us in any competitive game. Our last visit to Selhurst Park was when Warnock was manager we had gone 8 away games without a win but were leading Palace 2-1 thanks to two Steve Morison goals only for Palace to equalise late on when Glen Murray equalised extending our winless away run to 9.

So we go to this game on the back of a 1-4 home defeat missing Philips and Rodrigo. The defeat makes this game doubly important, we can do without back to back defeats to go into the international break with. The breaks did not go with us against Leicester, we could easily have gone 1-0 up immediately before their 2nd minute goal, conceding an early goal to the best counter attacking team in the League played right into their hands.

We have come a long way since our last visit to Palace. We may be going into the game on the back of a heavy defeat and missing a few players but in that 2013 game the likes of Tong, Green, Varney and Norris played and we bought on Hall and Habibou as subs to change things. We are a completely different beast nowadays.

We need to cut out the stupid mistakes that cost us dearly in the Leicester defeat or though a saturated pitch did not help our game. I would play Struijk instead of Shackleton, Shackleton was fantastic against Villa when he came on but not so good against Leicester. Struijk provides more physicality. We need to watch Zaha as he is their clear danger man. This is where we miss Phillips, he is superb at marking players out of games, Vardy was lucky he was missing on Monday. Any game home or away we go into with Bielsa making the decisions is a game we have a chance in.

[andrewjohnsmith]

Gelhardt played today in the U23 loss to Newcastle (scored a penalty). Would suggest he won't be in tomorrow's matchday squad. Plus side, could it mean Raphinha has recovered from his ankle knock?

Hopefully means the latter is true rather than having 4 defenders on the bench again. Not sure why Gelhardt wouldn't get pulled at half time to join up with the 1st team as cover. Obviously Bielsa doesn't thnk he's ready yet

[danhirons]

Do we really think we're good enough to class Palace as a potential banana skin?!

Been a kid table prem team for a number of years. Let's take what we can get and not expect too much

[White Riot]

With boring Roy Hodgson at the helm Palace will set up 442 and just look to counter us.

It'll be 70% possession for us, so we have to be more efficient with how we use it.

Hopefully Bielsa brings Pascal back into DM and Klich gets pushed up the pitch as he's not a DM.

Would be nice to see Raphinha get a run out as Roberts, Poveda and Shack we're disappointing.

Palace can hurt us with Zaha, Townsend and Eze if we're sloppy at the back again. But There nowhere near as good as Leicester.

They key will be whether we can create and take our chances, so over to you Paddy, Pablo, et al.

I think we'll win at a canter.

[1964white]

With boring Roy Hodgson at the helm Palace will set up 442 and just look to counter us.

It'll be 70% possession for us, so we have to be more efficient with how we use it.

Hopefully Bielsa brings Pascal back into DM and Klich gets pushed up the pitch as he's not a DM.

Would be nice to see Raphinha get a run out as Roberts, Poveda and Shack we're disappointing.

Palace can hurt us with Zaha, Townsend and Eze if we're sloppy at the back again. But There nowhere near as good as Leicester.

They key will be whether we can create and take our chances, so over to you Paddy, Pablo, et al.

I think we'll win at a canter.

And we cut out all those sloppy errors we witnessed v the Foxes, also Marcelo retains our best creative player on the pitch

Tough game however we can win this if we put our best foot forward

[White Riot]

Yeah, that decision to take Pablo off for Roberts was shocking and how he could not bring Pascal on in the first half amazes me.

[1964white]

Yeah, that decision to take Pablo off for Roberts was shocking and how he could not bring Pascal on in the first half amazes me.

Reminded me of the substitutions v Cardiff last year that cost us a victory

Never take off your most creative player or make a sub that is going to disrupt the system.

I have this horrible feeling Pablo's card is marked after his rant v the Foxes

[Irish Ian]

That is the thing about substitutions isn't it.

When they work you are a tactical genius, when they don't you are a Donkey.

[White Riot]

That is the thing about substitutions isn't it.

When they work you are a tactical genius, when they don't you are a Donkey.

Yeah, it worked against Villa. But Leicester were set up different to Villa. They swamped the wings and hit long balls to Vardy.

When we needed to create through the middle we couldn't manage it as Klich was at DCM, and no Rodrigo. To then sub off Pablo was baffling?