BETTING analyst Adam Wallis (@SharpSignals) shares his verdict on Sunday's FA Cup 4th Round showdown from Selhurst Park.
Crystal Palace v Tottenham | Sunday 27th January 2019, 16:00 | BT Sport
With the injuries at Tottenham, and the midweek loss to Chelsea, this FA Cup tie just got a whole lot more interesting. If you also factor in the three goals Crystal Palace scored at Anfield last weekend, then we’ll hopefully be in for a cracker.
Jumping straight into the betting side of things, the market can’t really split these two, meaning the natural Asian Handicap is set at 0.0 with the goal line at 2.5, which I think is a fair reflection of the current status of these two London clubs.
Crystal Palace
Roy Hodgson’s men sit in 15th in the Premier League, just three points off the drop zone. Their last outing was another thriller with Liverpool ending in a 4-3 loss.
The Eagles have had some significant results against the Big Six this season, the win of Manchester City at the Etihad the most notable, plus draws with Arsenal and Manchester United, and losing by one goal to Chelsea and Spurs, whilst Liverpool have beaten them 4-3 and 2-0.
Even though this is a cup match, I expect these players to take confidence from those results and give Spurs a game.
Tottenham
Things haven’t been plain sailing these last few weeks for Tottenham and losing your two top scorers in the same month is difficult for any team regardless of depth. The injury time winner at Fulham gave Spurs a boost going into the second leg EFL Cup semi-final against Chelsea but the Whites were undone on penalties after losing out 2-1 on aggregate.
Mauricio Pochettino’s men have just two full days to recover and motivate before another very tough clash against a Palace side who like to be physical.
Team news will be interesting here as Spurs face Watford in the Premier League just three days after, and then host Newcastle a further three days after that. These are games they will want to win if they want to keep on the tails of Man City and Liverpool.
I don’t see the Spurs manager going for anything but a win here but with the fixtures piling up he will want to get a result.
The stats
Crystal Palace average 10.63 shots per 90 minutes with 6.80 shots In the box. Spurs average 11.47 shots per 90 minutes with 8.27 from inside the penalty area.
Spurs currently have an xG figure of 1.60 whilst Palace are on 1.27 and its these metrics that lead me to thinking we have a little value on Over 2.5 Goals at 21/20 with BetVictor.
I think this will be an open game and goals are in order despite the absence of Harry Kane and Son Heung-min.
Best Bets
Crystal Palace v Tottenham – Over 2.5 Goals (21/20 BetVictor)
