Chelsea are one of the three remaining unbeaten teams in the Premier League. While they have dropped points to West Ham United, Manchester United and Liverpool, they are still unbeaten and find themselves only two points off the top of the table 10 matches into the season. The Blues are yet to drop points at home against a team outside of the big six and they’ll look to keep that streak alive against Crystal Palace.
Palace finally scored not only one goal but two against Arsenal last weekend, earning them a deserved point. Palace’s two goals against the Gunners were penalties, but it’s better than nothing, which is what they had had recently. However they scored the goals, they outshot their big six opponents 16 to seven, something they will hope to repeat against Chelsea.
Chelsea have a few injury concerns, but it looks like most of them will be cleared up before the match on Sunday. Eden Hazard is set to make his return to the team after timeout with a back injury and Pedro has recovered from his illness to make a substitute appearance against Derby. Olivier Giroud is a doubt, according to Physioroom.com and Marco Van Ginkel will miss out with a torn ACL.
Palace’s situation is a bit more simple, they have a few players hurt and all of them will miss out. Christian Benteke, Scott Dann and Joel Ward will all miss out through injury, according to Physioroom.com.
Key Players
Chelsea: Eden Hazard
Chelsea’s season simply would not be as successful without Hazard. He has scored or assisted 1.35 goals per 90 minutes so far this season, which is a completely insane rate. For perspective, Mohammed Salah scored or assisted 1.29 goals per 90 minutes in his historic 2017/2018 season. Hazard has been sensational and, if he’s at his best, Palace will struggle to keep up.
Crystal Palace: Wilfred Zaha
Zaha has scored or assisted four of Palace’s seven goals this season and that doesn’t even include winning one if the two penalties last week. He has been Palace’s alpha and omega from an attacking perspective.
Most of their attacking threat comes through Zaha and he’ll need to be at his best for Palace to get anything against Chelsea.
Prediction
It will be a massive surprise if Chelsea drop any points to Palace. They are a more talented team, they are at home and they are in better form.
