Crystal Palace Look to Sting Brentford | OneFootball

Crystal Palace face Brentford at Selhurst Park in the Premier League as the Eagles look to regain their early-season momentum after a recent dip in form.

As Eddie Nketiah’s 97th minute strike hit the back of the net against champions, Liverpool a month ago, Palace were second in the league above the likes of Tottenham, Chelsea and Manchester City. Arsenal had played a game less at the time.

Now, just three games later, they are tenth – level on points with the Bees in 11th, who were 13th when Palace beat Liverpool. 

The Eagles’ worries were somewhat alleviated after a 3-0 EFL Cup win over an inexperienced Liverpool team in midweek. Although the victory over Liverpool was a tremendous result for Oliver Glasner’s men, the Reds made ten changes to their starting 11 and were without Mohamed Salah, Alexander Isak, Virgil van Dijk and many more first-team stars. Therefore, there is still work to do for the Palace boss to get his side back on track.

Crystal Palace’s last 10 matches. Source: Sofascore

Palace’s recent struggles

Palace’s 2-0 away win against Dynamo Kyiv, in what was their first ever match in European competition, meant the club were unbeaten in 19 games in a row in all competitions. However, goals from Iliman Ndiaye and Jack Grealish at the Hill Dickinson Stadium just three days later ended that run as Everton beat them 2-1.  

Since then, in the Premier League, Palace have been held to a 3-3 draw to Bournemouth and lost 1-0 to Arsenal with a goal from their former star Eberechi Eze. Then came the Palace’s biggest game of the season so far – their first European home match against AEK, in the Conference League.

Despite Jean-Philippe Mateta and Nketiah both having multiple chances to get on the scoresheet,  a stunning strike from Riad Bajic meant that the Cypriot side went home with all three points.

Eagles boss Glasner believes that the main reason for their poor run of form in Europe and the Premier League has been the failure to take their chances of late.

“The easy answer is that we didn’t score from the chances we had.” Glasner said after the defeat to AEK Larnaca. “We made one mistake and they punished us. I think that’s the summary. They had in total I think four shots and we made one mistake. So, congratulations to Larnaca. They were very efficient. For us there’s a little bit of deja vu. We have had games where we create many chances, but don’t score enough and then get punished.”

A surprisingly strong start for Brentford

How can Palace get back to winning ways in the league against Brentford?

After selling forward Bryan Mbeumo to Manchester United, manager Thomas Frank to Tottenham and other key players Yoane Wissa to Newcastle and Christian Norgaard to Arsenal many predicted Keith Andrews’ side to struggle in the Premier League this season.

Against all the early-season odds, Brentford are above the likes of Newcastle and Brighton and come into the game off a 3-2 win over Liverpool last weekend.

Andrews was previously Brentford’s set-piece coach; however he does not seem to just be relying on set-plays. Despite Dango Ouatarra’s opener against Liverpool coming from a Michael Kayode long throw, Brentford’s goals from set-pieces are at their lowest level since they were promoted to the league in 2021 with only two of the Bees’ 14 goals scored this season coming from set-pieces.  

It is attacking teams in transition that has been the Irishman’s focus. In fact, Brentford have already scored as many goals on the break this season as they have in the whole of last. Only Bournemouth have more goals in transition than Brentford this season. 

Whether it is Brentford continuing to defy the odds or Crystal Palace bouncing back from their Premier League dip in form, what is not in doubt is that this London derby will be a fascinating watch for the neutral.