Norwich City Vs Crystal Palace
Tuesday 1st January 2020 – 15:00 Kick-Off
English Premier League
Pick: Crystal Palace Draw No Bet
Odds: Evens
Bookmaker: BetVictor
English Premier League Betting at 22Bet
(All betting odds displayed were correct at the time of writing: 29th December 2019 at 10:50)
Preview: Every game takes on greater significance when consumed by the fear of relegation, as Norwich City most certainly are. The Premier League’s bottom club welcome mid-table Crystal Palace to Carrow Road on Tuesday for another must-win encounter for the home side.
Norwich City Vs Crystal Palace Live Stats & Betting Odds
Norwich City Preview – Defensive lapses continue to hamper survival efforts?
As has been the norm during this season, Norwich City (20th – W3 D4 L13, GF21 GA40) were left to rue their inability to defend a lead – or defend at all it seems – as two potentially crucial points were meekly surrendered at home to Tottenham on Saturday. Mario Vrancic and a Serge Aurier own goal providing them with two separate leads only to be pegged back both times, with questionable goalkeeping and some ridiculously bad defending to blame for only drawing a game 2-2 which really should have been won.
Fortune wasn’t exactly on their side last time out either, with VAR denying Teemu Pukki a perfectly valid goal to the naked eye. The Finland international remains the club’s leading scorer in 2019/20 with nine goals but produced a frustrating performance last time out, spurning several good openings with some poor touches and erratic decision-making. Todd Cantwell boasts a respectable five goals from midfield this season and should return to the side after featuring only as a late substitute against Spurs.
That point didn’t really help them a great deal The Canaries remain rooted to the bottom of the table and are now six points adrift of safety. This whilst still possessing the poorest defensive record in the entire division, averaging precisely two goals conceded per match. There hasn’t been a clean sheet, or victory, since beating Everton 2-0 at Goodison Park in November some eight games ago (D3 L4 since). Meanwhile Carrow Road is still to bear witness to its first home clean sheet of the campaign, with all ten visiting sides managing to score there so far.
Crystal Palace Preview – Unspectacular Eagles continue to frustrate layers?
Few teams have mastered the art of collecting points without playing particularly well quite like this current edition of Crystal Palace (9th – W7 D6 L7, GF18 GA22). A 1-1 draw with Southampton at St Mary’s the latest in a long line of examples we could use to illustrate the frequency with which Roy Hodgson’s men have ground out positive outcomes this season that were scarcely deserved, somehow registering a point from a contest they were a very clear second-best in: xG SOU 1.62 – 0.25 PAL.
Impressive on the eye they are evidently not but especially from an attacking perspective, generating a measly 1xGF over the course of the season. Yet the beauty of this team is its resilience in abundance; able to withstand a lot of what is thrown at them whether it be waves of offensive pressure, falling behind or even the loss of key players to injury. The latter in particular has plagued them throughout the campaign but not even this has prevented the South Londone club from registering enough points to occupy mid-table.
Put simply, opposing Palace has often been the quickest way to the poor house this season. That is especially true of late, with The Eagles losing only one of their past seven league encounters (W3 D3 L1), which was that extremely harsh 1-0 loss away to Newcastle when conceding the decisive goal in the dying moments. Goals, however, continue to prove somewhat elusive: five of their previous six games seen them score no more than once, scoring just the one goal across their last three away matches (D2 L1).
Norwich City Vs Crystal Palace – Key Facts:
- No team has conceded more often (40 from 20 games) in this season’s Premier League than Norwich, who are winless in seven such fixtures (D3 L4).
- Contrastingly, only three teams boast better defensive records than Crystal Palace (22 conceded from 20 games), with The Eagles losing one of their past seven matches (W3 D3 L1).
- Crystal Palace not only won this encounter 2-0 earlier in the season, albeit at home, but were 3-1 victors on their most recent visit to Carrow Road back in 2016.
Betting Summary
Organised chaos meets organised Palace? Norwich (8/5 BetFred) have been involved in some crazy, high-scoring encounters throughout the season, as their moderately dangerous and energetic attack continues to be offset by a hapless rearguard action which has shipped more goals than any other team in England’s top tier. Whereas Crystal Palace (9/5 Betfair) are unspectacular with the ball but usually very resolute and well-regimented without it.
I really want to back Norwich. Their brand of football is a lot more refreshing and pleasing on the eye, and they’ve played well enough to deserve more from a recent run that has ultimately brought them no win in the last seven matches (D3 L4). Therefore backing them at around 6/4 doesn’t make much appeal, sadly. Crystal Palace are a vastly more experienced and savvy outfit, which has shone through during the campaign with some of their results. The visitors are 11/20 with Unibet in the Double Chance market.
