Manchester United vs Crystal Palace 24/08/19

24 August 2019

Manchester United and Crystal Palace will face-off at Old Trafford in contrasting circumstances. While the hosts returned four points from the opening two Premier League (PL) matchdays, the visitors are still chasing their first league win this term.

The hosts go into this fixture off the back of a 1-1 away draw with Wolverhampton that has seen Paul Pogba miss a spot-kick to help his side wrap up three points. The Red Devils have, however, swept Chelsea aside with a stunning 4-0 home triumph in the PL opener, putting to an end their three-game PL home winless run (D1, L2). Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has legitimate right to look for success here, as United secured six wins in their last seven home PL H2Hs with Palace (W6, D1), five of which have been to nil. A potential worry for the Norwegian manager could be that his team has failed to keep a clean sheet in eight of ten PL home outings since the turn of the year, allowing over 1.5 match goals in half of those games (4).

Meanwhile, the visitors arrive at the Theatre of Dreams after failing to find the net in their opening two PL fixtures, with both of those games featuring under 1.5 goals (D1, L1). Winless in their last 22 PL H2H meetings with United, the Eagles now face an uphill task of achieving their elusive first league triumph over the three-time European Cup winners in the 21st century. Maybe the only encouraging fact for the traveling side ahead of this clash is that they’ve pulled off five wins in their last seven PL trips (W5, L2), four of which have seen them score over 2.5 match goals. But, the Glaziers have struggled to prevent their rivals from scoring six times across the same period, with eight of a total nine goals they’ve conceded in that span coming in the second half.