Crystal Palace vs. Tottenham Hotspur: match preview, projected lineups and predictions

After the 4-0 demolition of Bournemouth ten days ago, Tottenham Hotspur fell to hated London rivals Chelsea in the FA Cup semifinal this past Saturday. A slightly peculiar starting lineup, combined with some poor defending, and a whole heck of a lot of bad luck, saw Spurs ousted from England’s most prestigious cup competition. Unlike their other performances at Wembley this year though, Tottenham’s play was nothing to be ashamed of, and the 4-2 scoreline is deceiving. One can’t say that Chelsea didn’t deserve to win — they were ruthlessly clinical in nearly all their chances — but Spurs controlled large swaths of the match and on the whole were a better side on the day. Football can be fickle.

Spurs head into their thirty-third game of the year with the Premier League’s most goals, the least against, and the largest goal differential. At seventy-one points they are four back from Chelsea in second place. There is still a month to play in the season, but these are astounding statistics and an incredible place in the table for this stage in the campaign. They are seven and eight points clear of City and United respectively, who possess fourth and fifth and fifth place in the table, while Liverpool’s loss to Palace on Sunday keeps them five back from Spurs in third place, but with two extra games played.

Wednesday’s opponents, Crystal Palace, are on absolute fire. Spurs flawless run of Premier League form and their push to challenge Chelsea at the top has been a massive storyline, but if Tottenham weren’t so prolific in the last month, everyone might be talking more about Crystal Palace. Their April results are intimidating. They’ve defeated Arsenal comprehensively, while also taking care of Chelsea and Liverpool, and drew Leicester too. Those are fantastic results for any club in the country and Tottenham will face a fearless opponent, brimming with confidence, at Selhurst Park.

The front three of Christian Benteke, Wilifred Zaha, and Andros Townsend have run riot of late and all three have dynamism and quality to their game. Benteke, in particular, is finally healthy and is a goal scoring machine. His quality has never been questioned and he is a handful up front who is fit and firing on all cylinders. Further, Zaha has played so well that their are rumors of Pochettino and Tottenham Hotspur swooping in for the winger this summer.

Cabaye and Puncheon are veterans and solid in the center of the park, but the achilles heal of the Eagles is their backline. Not that they’ve been poor in this run of form, but fifty-three goals against is thirty-one more goals than Spurs have let up all year. They aren’t terrible, in fact they have a lot of serviceable players in defense, namely James Tompkins and Joel Ward, but they are certainly susceptible to concede.

There was a possibility that Spurs were going to run the table, and it was very easy to buy into that notion with the way they were playing, but that was always an unlikely outcome. The more probable path was that they would lose a match and be tested. With a cranking Crystal Palace side next and the North London Derby this weekend, Tottenham Hotspur don’t have time to dwell on their FA Cup defeat. There is a lot riding on this week, hopefully Spurs can rise to two formidable challenges.