Real Football Man All of the Football, All of the time
Sunderland have no fresh injuries following their weekend defeat at West Ham United.
Jeremain Lens and Duncan Watmore remain sidelined by respective hernia and ankle ligament injuries.
Fit-again Crystal Palace winger Yannick Bolasie is likely to make his first start since December after impressing as a substitute against West Brom.
Jason Puncheon and James McArthur remain out but Bakary Sako may return from a hamstring problem.
Editor’s Note: It wasn’t a happy return to Upton Park for Sam Allardyce on Saturday as his Sunderland offered very little in their defeat to West Ham, a defeat that keeps them in the bottom three and below their most hated of local rivals Newcastle.
For a Coach who is defensively minded the fact that Sam Allardyce’s black cats have shipped 51 Goals this season, the highest amount in the League (along with Norwich) certainly won’t make for happy reading as his Black Cats side aim to beat the drop for the 9th season in a row.
If that’s the bad news then the good news will be that they are only a point from safety and Tonight they play host to a Crystal Palace side who are still searching for their first win since beating Stoke at The Britannia on December 19th
Crystal Palace lost a 5 goal thriller at The Hawthorns (a phrase you don’t usually hear in all fairness) but they only woke into life once they gave West Brom a 3-0 head start. It seems as if Alan Pardew is returning to type and is masterminding another slump down the table.
For all of Palace’s dreams of being in the hunt for the Europa League places come the end of the season and parallel talk of Alan Pardew becoming the next England Manager on the back of Palace’s impressive form those two things are surely pipe dreams now as Palace and Pardew have to make sure they arrest this slide and stop themselves from getting into a relegation battle from this point forward.
Palace are currently 8 points clear of the drop zone and it only takes a couple of wins from Sunderland or Alan Pardew’s former side Newcastle for them to be dragged further into the mix. As it stands 32 points is not going to be enough to keep a side up this season.
Can Sunderland take advantage of Palace’s woeful form, they won’t have many better opportunities to get 3 points between now and the final day of the season. Palace are certainly there for the taking and I think Sunderland will extend this winless run even further. A home win and more despair for Palace.
