Burnley vs Crystal Palace
Date: 10/09/2017
K/O: 13.30
TV: Sky Sports Premier League
Frank de Boer will be looking to get his season up and running at his Crystal Palace side’s trip to Turf Moor for the Sunday lunchtime kick-off. Despite only being three games into the season there is already talk of the Palace boss losing his job due to their abject start to the campaign.
Burnley on the other hand find themselves in good form. Sean Dyche’s men have picked up a win at Stamford Bridge and a draw against Tottenham at Wembley in their opening games.
Both sides have slight injury issues with Burnley midfielder Jeff Hendrick being a doubt after sustaining a thigh injury on international duty and Palace forward Wilfred Zaha still being unavailable.
Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Yohan Cabaye and James Tomkins are all expected to be fit and available for Crystal Palace. Whilst for Burnley record signing Chris Wood could make his first Premier League start and Jon Walters is back in contention.
This game is probably what you would call a ‘must win’ for Frank de Boer. The Premier League is too competitive and there is too much money at stake for the Crystal Palace owners to allow this sort of form to carry on for much longer.
It will be interesting to see whether De Boer sticks to his morals and carries on trying to play his possession based style of football which his team have not been able to pull off all season, or if he has a slice of humble pie and switches to a more pragmatic style which his players may be more suited to.
Burnley are expected to keep their shape from their previous games. A tight compact defensive line with a well organised and drilled midfield and attack. Sean Dyche has evidently been working on making his team more dynamic and flowing than previous seasons and this game could be the perfect opportunity to trial that. Palace have shipped 6 goals in their opening 3 games without scoring any in return.
I fear that this may be another afternoon full of disappointment for Crystal Palace fans. In their current state, it is hard to work out where they are going to get goals, or points from. De Boer famously lasted 85 days before getting the sack at Inter Milan, a bad result today could mean his time in South London is even shorter.
Team Predictions:
Burnley: Heaton, Lowton, Tarkowski, Mee, Ward, Gudmundsson, Cork, Defour, Brady, Arfield, Vokes
Crystal Palace: Hennessy, Fosu-Mensah, Dann, Tomkins, Ward, Loftus-Cheek, Milivojevic, Van Aanholt, Townsend, Puncheon, Benteke
Score Prediction: 2-0
Written by Dom Clarke
