'Jekyll & Hyde Palace Hoping For Uptick In Results'
- Football London reporter Joe Doyle previews Leicester City's visit to Crystal Palace on Monday
- The Eagles have found a consistent run of positive form hard to come by in the 2020/21 season
- However, Doyle pointed to an array of encouraging results as a source of motivation
- Live coverage of the game will be available, for free, from 1:30pm on LCFC TV and LCFC Radio
The Eagles have beaten Southampton, Manchester United and Leeds United, among others, this term, but also suffered defeats to sides like Burnley and Newcastle United more recently.
On the back of a 7-0 loss to champions Liverpool, meanwhile, Roy Hodgson's men were beaten 3-0 by Aston Villa in Birmingham on Boxing Day in the same month they defeated West Bromwich Albion 5-1 in the second city.
Speaking to LCFC TV's Matchday Live show, which will be broadcast from 90 minutes before the 3pm GMT kick-off in the capital, Doyle provided a rundown of Palace's start to the 2020/21 campaign.
"With Palace this season, it’s definitely been interesting, one way or another," he explained. "There have been some big results in both directions for them, so it’s just a case of which team turns up.
"There’s been some big wins against the likes of Leeds United and then, of course, the recent 7-0 loss against Liverpool, so they’re a bit Jekyll and Hyde at the moment.
"You can distil that down to the two games that Wilfried Zaha missed, against Burnley and Newcastle, when they lost against teams that are quite beatable for a team like Palace.
"They’re the teams that they would be hoping to beat and they followed it up with three really good performances on the bounce against West Brom, Spurs and West Ham.
"Of course, they only came out of that stretch with five points. However, it’s the duality of Palace at the moment. They put in really good performances, but don’t get what they quite deserve.
"In those two games against Burnley and Newcastle, you can see they set up quite defensively and that’s what frustrates Palace fans.
"You see how well they played against West Brom and that they are capable of some really good attacking displays, but they’re not really seeing it often enough for their liking.
"When you look at the results, there’s quite a few wins, quite a few losses and only a few draws so far, so with the packed schedule, I’m assuming it’ll be a quite entertaining clash."
Securing a top half finish remains an attainable goal for the Eagles, Doyle believes, and they will be boosted by several stars returning from injuries over the festive season.
"For Roy Hodgson, he’s always keen to state that it’s about getting to 40 points as soon as possible and then they’ll take it from there and see how it goes," he added.
"I think that goes for quite a few clubs in the Premier League really, but deep down, they’ll be hoping to look at the mid-table area at the end of the season, as a realistic goal.
"They have improved with a number of players returning from injury since around about October time. The defence at the start of the season was really makeshift.
"They had Cheikhou Kouyaté starting at centre-back, who is better in central midfield, and he’s really impressed there recently and become first-choice.
"They also had Tyrick Mitchell starting at left-back. He’s a really promising young star, but obviously he’s not the first choice and that goes for a number that they were filling in.
"But there’s a lot of competition places now, though, and they’re hoping to see an uptick in performances, but you can come up against the likes of Liverpool and get blown away."
Doyle also picked out players for City fans to keep an eye out for. While Wilfried Zaha is well known to the Blue Army, another more familiar face, former Fox Jeff Schlupp, has also stood out recently.
"One person who’s been really impressing lately is Jeff Schlupp," he continued. "He’s adapted across a number of positions so far this season.
"He’s been played on the left wing and in attack, in the absence of Zaha and Christian Benteke.
"Recently, we’ve seen him on the right-hand side of midfield and he’s put in some really good performances, even in the 7-0 against Liverpool.
"He looked quite dangerous and put in a couple of good balls, so I think the way Palace link up has been really interesting, especially down the left side.
"Patrick van Aanholt, he’s become a point of contention, whether his attacking output makes up for his defending, but when he’s combining and overlapping, it really frees up space for [Eberechi] Eze and Zaha to look really good.
"Eze looks a lot more confident on the ball and we’re starting to see the best from him and why Palace made the move for him in the summer and it looks quite a good bargain."