Desperate Burnley seek to exploit Palace’s dip at Turf Moor | OneFootball

Crystal Palace visit Burnley on Wednesday in a Premier League fixture that would usually be classified as a straightforward assignment for them.

However, Palace have lost back-to-back league games and have lost the rhythm that carried them through the early months of the season.

Burnley remain firmly in relegation trouble, yet they are unlikely to view this as an unwinnable fixture.

Their defeat at Brentford on Saturday was another sharp reminder of their fragility, as they conceded three times in the final stages to lose a game they had been close to managing. They have now lost four matches in a row and have slipped deeper into the bottom three. Their issues are increasingly predictable, with competitive spells undermined by lapses and a lack of goals.

Palace need a response at Turf Moor. Their defeats to Strasbourg and Manchester United halted a strong run and reopened questions about their resilience.

The visitors are still in the top half of the table and remain only a few points off the European places, but those losses have interrupted a momentum that had given them authority in tight matches.

The situation gives Burnley reason to believe that a positive result is possible if they approach the contest with intensity.

They cannot afford to play conservatively and must treat this as an opportunity to take advantage of a team whose confidence is not as strong as it was a month ago.

Palace are the favourites because of the quality of their forwards and the organisation they showed earlier in the campaign, but this is unlikely to be a routine away performance.

Burnley will commit bodies forward, chase every loose ball and try to force mistakes.

Palace have enough to win, but their recent form suggests they will not find this fixture as comfortable as the table implies.