Fixtures
- Aston Villa Vs. Crystal Palace – Sat, Nov 23rd 2024, 15:00
With a successful international break behind them, Aston Villa resume their Premier League campaign at home to Crystal Palace.
Several Villans starred for their countries, including Morgan Rogers who picked up his first two England caps on the back of a strong start to the season.
Unai Emery’s team will be looking to get back to winning ways after five matches without a victory in all competitions.
Villa are just a point off third place heading into the weekend as a competitive top flight campaign continues.
Crystal Palace find themselves in the relegation zone having picked up a single win in their 11 league matches thus far.
The Eagles have suffered a number of narrow defeats and are yet to triumph on their travels in the Premier League.
However, Oliver Glasner’s men did pull off a 2-1 success when they visited Villa Park for a Carabao Cup tie last month.
Stats
Crystal Palace striker Jean-Philippe Mateta has scored more Premier League goals (4) and recorded his joint-most assists (2) in the competition against Aston Villa than any other opponent.
After 1,026 games as a manager, Aston Villa’s Unai Emery has lost four consecutive games in all competitions for the first time, a run that started with a League Cup defeat to Crystal Palace last month. The Spaniard could lose each of his first three managerial meetings with Oliver Glasner, something he last did against a specific manager in March 2018 (Zinedine Zidane).
Crystal Palace have registered just seven points from their opening 11 league games this season (W1 D4 L6), only picking up fewer points at this stage of a Premier League campaign in 2013-14 (4) and 2017-18 (4).
The away side has won just three of the 24 Premier League meetings between Aston Villa and Crystal Palace (D6 L15), with the Eagles’ only victory at Villa Park coming in December 2013 (1-0).
Following their 5-0 win against Aston Villa on the final day of last season’s Premier League, Crystal Palace are looking to win consecutive league meetings with the Villans for the first time since a run of three between 2005 and 2014.
Aston Villa have lost just one of their 12 Premier League home games against Crystal Palace (W7 D4), never conceding more than once in any of these 12 meetings (6 goals conceded in total).
The Last Meeting
Aston Villa bowed out of the Carabao Cup at the fourth round stage with a 2-1 defeat to Crystal Palace at Villa Park last month.
Unai Emery’s side went behind early on to Eberechi Eze’s header before levelling things up via Jhon Durán’s eighth goal of the season.
Palace rallied again after the break and clinched the winner through substitute Daichi Kamada just after the hour mark.
Team News
Ross Barkley and Matty Cash are both expected to return to the fold having missed out due to injury before the international break.
But Ezri Konsa, Amadou Onana, Jacob Ramsey and Boubacar Kamara are set to miss the encounter against the Eagles.
Palace also have injury worries, with England internationals Eberechi Eze and Adam Wharton sidelined.
Cheick Doucouré, Will Hughes and Jefferson Lerma are available to return to the squad.
Managers’ Pre-Match Thoughts
“Every match is very difficult. We can analyse the table and there are a lot of teams separated by a few points. How we are finishing the match tomorrow can change a lot of things in the position we are now. Crystal Palace have all my respect. We can analyse them playing against us three weeks ago when they beat us here and last season they were fantastic in the last four months of the season. They are playing in the same idea and style, but they’ve had some injuries and (Michael) Olise is no longer in the squad. They are playing the same as last year when they were successful. They deserve more points than they have now.” – Unai Emery
“I have a lot of appreciation for Unai Emery. In every club he managed, you can see how he wants to play, you can see what he wants to do, and everywhere he was successful. It’s the same with Aston Villa. When you analyse the game, the style of playing is always the same, because it’s how the manager wants to play, so this is very positive for Unai Emery. On the other side, it makes it sometimes a little bit easier in preparing the game and creating a plan, but to be honest, when we create a plan we always [aim to] win the game. But on the other side, we were not that successful this season, in winning any game, so it’s the same. The one thing is the plan we have, analysing is the second thing, and the most important and decisive part is the transformation on the pitch.” – Oliver Glasner
