4 hours ago
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All three of Forest’s remaining games after this one are winnable – Leicester (h), West Ham (a), Chelsea (h), certainly not the easiest but not bad either. Let’s compare them to the other four contenders for the top five
Manchester City
Southampton (a)
Bournemouth (h)
Fulham (a)
That’s not bad at all. You would expect City to take at least seven points from those three.
Newcastle
Chelsea (h)
Arsenal (a)
Everton (h)
Tricky. A lot rests on their next result, at home to Chelsea.
Chelsea
Newcastle (a)
Manchester United (h)
Nottingham Forest (a)
That is dastardly but not impossible.
Aston Villa
Bournemouth (a)
Tottenham (h)
Manchester United (a)
Another tough set of fixtures. Given they are seventh with a poor relative goal difference, I’d say that will be an uphill battle.
Palace are unchanged from the XI that beat Aston Villa in the FA Cup semi-final. Hardly a shock call from Glasner, Palace were absolutely brilliant at Wembley.
Forest make two changes from the team that lost at home to Brentford, with Nicolas Dominguez and Ibrahim Sangare replacing the injured Callum Hudson-Odoi and Ryan Yates.
The teams!
Crystal Palace (3-4-2-1): Henderson, Richards, Lacroix, Guehi, Munoz, Wharton, Kamada, Mitchell, Sarr, Eze, Mateta.
Subs: Devenny, Chilwell, Esse, Hughes, Clyne, Franca, Nketiah, Lerma, Matthews.
Nottingham Forest (4-2-3-1): Sels, Aina, Milenkovic, Murillo, Williams, Sangare, Dominguez, Elanga, Gibbs-White, Anderson, Wood.
Subs: Carlos Miguel, Morato, Awoniyi, Toffolo, Jota Silva, Yates, Sosa, Danilo, Boly.
Preamble
Who would you rather be? Crystal Palace, marooned in mid-table but with an FA Cup final to come (victory in which would secure Europa League qualification) or Nottingham Forest, out of the FA Cup but still with a very good chance of qualifying for the Champions League?
I say very good and not excellent because Forest have been on something of a stinker of late, just one win and three losses in their last four league games, which isn’t really Champions League form, chaps. That said, they are very much still in it. Four points behind third-placed Manchester City, just three points behind both fourth-placed Newcastle and fifth-placed Chelsea. This game, away at Palace, is their game in hand. It is absolutely vital that they win tonight, not only to put points back on the board, but also change the momentum which has recently seen them hurtle out of the top five.
Palace and Forest have both had excellent seasons by their previously middling expectations and this is a fine time to be a fan of either club. Let’s hope for a good game.
Kick-off: 8pm BST.
