Crystal Palace v Man Utd

It's been a bizarre season to be a fan of the Eagles - opening the season with a run of seven straight defeats was obviously deeply concerning - during which time they failed to score and conceded 17. Thing improved quickly after Roy Hodgson joined however, and they prospered in November and December to climb into a pretty comfortable mid-table spot, with wins over Stoke, Watford, Leicester, Southampton and Burnley amongst a number of draws.

More recently however, injuries have begun to pile up in South London, and Hodgson has had little answer to the absence of his key men, collecting just two points from their last five outings, and getting pulled back into the drop zone. He prepares for tonight without Mamadou Sakho, Scott Dann, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Bakary Sako, Yohan Cabaye, and their talisman, Wilfried Zaha - all of whom make the starting line-up when fully fit.

Zaha in particular is the focus of most of Palace's attacking prowess - they've scored just once in the eight Premier League matches they've played without him this season, and his absence matches exactly when Palace have struggled. With Zaha, they have collected an average of 1.35 pts per game this season, but without him it drops to just 0.5pts per game!

Palace will therefore approach this looking to kill the game as much as possible, but Man United can afford to be patient, and if Palace invite too much pressure it's hard to see them achieving a full 90-minute shut out.

United have been something less than overpowering away from home, so we wouldn't expect them to thrash Palace tonight - they drew 0-0 in Seville, beat Huddersfield 2-0, Lost 1-0 at Newcastle and lost 2-0 at Spurs recently, but they should get the job done. At 1/2 it's hard to back them, but perhaps the better options could be to back them to win "to nil" and also chance a small bet on the 2-0 correct score.

1pt Man Utd to win to nil at 11/8 (Sun Bets)

0.5pts Man Utd to win 2-0 at 6/1 (Paddy Power)

#Football