What way will Palace find to avoid defeat to Brighton this time?
Feast or famine? What will it be when Brighton host Crystal Palace because the likelihood is that there will be no middle ground.
The Albion owe their arch rivals an absolute hammering and have done for the best part of four years now. And yet whenever Seagulls face Eagles, Palace seen to receive their entire season’s quota of luck in that most important 180 minutes of the season.
It should have been impossible for anything to beat the ridiculousness of the 2020-21 season. Brighton had 45 shots with eight on target over their two games with Palace, who in contrast managed just four with only three on target. The result? Four points for the Eagles.
And yet somehow, last month’s clash at Selhurst Park was even more ludicrous. The Albion should have won by three or four goals but in typical style, World Cup winner Alexis Mac Allister chose that day to forget how to score and missed out on a hat-trick as a result.
Robert Sanchez then decided to throw in an equaliser for the Eagles and to round things off nicely, VAR drew their offside lines from the wrong Palace defender and Pervis Estupinan was denied a perfectly good goal. At this point, you cannot make it up.
If Brighton are to record a first win in eight against Palace, then they will have to find a way to overcome the people of Croydon sacrificing lambs under a full moon to the pagan Goddess of Fortune.
There remains no other rational explanation for the luck they receive every time facing the Seagulls.
The Albion will also need to be clinical, far more so than in their 2-2 draw at The Leeds United on Saturday. This feels kind of like stating the obvious after the 45 shot and one point debacle and what we saw at Selhurst in February.
On that occasion, Palace sat deep and defended. They double marked Kaoru Mitoma, meaning that the Japanese Bullet Train struggled to have his normal impact.
That did open up more room for Solly March down the other flank and even though March scored against the club who released him as a teenager, Brighton need Mitoma to be more in the game on this occasion.
Palace will probably be even more defensive this time around. The good news is that Brighton have at least proven they can now overcome such tactics at the Amex, brutally taking apart West Ham United after previously dropping points against Nottingham Forest, Aston Villa and Fulham.
Whilst the Albion have been one of the most free scoring teams in the Premier League since the winter break, the struggles Palace have had in front of goal have been well documented.
We all know what's happening on Wednesday https://t.co/48iXj76YuH
— We Are Brighton (@wearebrighton) March 11, 2023
The Eagles have now gone three games in a row without a single shot on target. This is the worst run on record since the Premier League started documenting such statistics in the 2003-04 campaign.
As a million quote tweets attest to, every single Brighton fan is expecting it to end at the Amex – and probably in a 1-0 Palace victory.
Either that or the Albion win 8-0 to make up for the absolute nonsense this fixture has become. Feast or famine?
