Crystal Palace v Fulham Betting Tip Under 2.5 goals – 2 February 2019

Crystal Palace v Fulham
Saturday 2nd February 1500hrs 
Football – England – Premier League
Pick Under 2.5 goals
Bookmaker: Betfair
Odds: 9/10(odds taken 20.40 GMT, Thursday 31^st January)

After a crazy midweek card the Premier League action continues at apace with a massive game at the bottom taking place at Selhurst Park. Crystal Palace host Fulham in a London derby that has even more on it than usual. Read on for a match preview and selected best betting tip.

Premier League Betting at Betfair

Crystal Palace Preview

It was looking like it would be the perfect away day for Roy Hodgson’s men on Wednesday, as Palace were leading for long spells against Southampton and on course for a crucial win. The last 15 minutes or so proved to be their undoing, however, as Saints equalised and matters got worse for the visitors with the dismissal of Wilfred Zaha in the closing stages. Zaha is pivotal to this team’s success as we know and having opened the scoring earlier in the game he has cost his team by now being unavailable for Saturday’s match at home to Fulham. Ordinarily the point would have been a welcome one but it now means it’s just one win in their last six league games and they remain very much involved in the battle to beat the drop. It’s far from the critical stage, however, and Palace showed how capable they are as a team when seeing off Tottenham 2-0 in last week’s FA Cup tie but they have to find a way to transfer that form into their league games. That applies especially to home games where they have struggled all season and managed to score only six goals in 11 games which is the second worst attack in the league behind Huddersfield.

Fulham Preview

The current situation is bad for Fulham but it could have been much, much worse. Tuesday’s home match with Brighton had look a good opportunity for second-bottom Fulham to pick up some much-needed points but when going down 2-0 in the first half you could be forgiven for thinking that their Premier League stay was going to be a short one, with an immediate return to the Championship, likely. An amazing second half comeback, however, resulted in a 4-2 win, ensuring the Cottagers earned their first league victory of 2019. Claudio Ranieri will hope it gives the squad and club as a whole the lift that they need in order to mount a survival bid. What they will have to do in order to achieve that is improve their away form which is the worse in the league, managing only two points from 12 matches and scoring only eight goals, which is the second worst attack. They’ll make the short journey to Selhurst Park on Saturday desperate to improve those records and attempt to do something they’ve not managed so far this season which is to win consecutive league games, which is another unwanted statistic.

Crystal Palace v Fulham Betting Advice

Palace have a four-point cushion over the bottom three and are a further two points better off than their opponents who have only Huddersfield below them in the table. It makes for a very high-pressure game which could see the hots pulled deep into trouble if Fulham can muster another win and continue their revival. Usually having home advantage – particularly against a team who terrible on their travels – would count for a lot but Hodgson’s team have won just twice at Selhurst Park in the league all season, both wins coming at the beginning of December. The absence of Zaha only serves to make their job that bit more difficult as he’s very much their talisman.

It’s easy to argue that both these teams would have had bigger ambitions than merely surviving this season but that’s very much the situation they find themselves in. Hodgson has to find a way to get his team scoring more goals, especially at home, whilst Ranieri has tried to make Fulham harder to beat having shipped goals heavily before his arrival. That’s not exactly how it’s played out but there has been an obvious attempt to shore the defence up. I believe there’s a standout bet in this game on Saturday and that’s for the scoring to be under 2.5 goals. Nine of Palace’s 11 home league games have had two or fewer goals and their attack will be affected further with Zaha missing. Combine that with Fulham managing only eight goals in 12 away games – and the fact that both teams will be cautious in their approach – then it screams a low-scoring affair.