Crystal Palace v Sunderland Tips | 3rd November 2014 | Sky Sports 1

TWO of the bottom five meet in the Monday night match. Chris Graham (@chrisgraham79) takes a look at the odds.

Crystal Palace v Sunderland | Monday 20:00 | Sky Sports 1

Let's be honest, this isn't the most enticing of Monday night matches, and finding a betting angle isn't straight-forward either.

The natural thought-process is to side with Palace at 23/20 with Ladbrokes. One could imagine the raucous Selhurst Park atmosphere may be too much for this fragile Sunderland side to handle. But when you study the home form of Palace this season, it's actually quite disappointing with just one win in four and a failed attempt to beat basement boys Burnley within that.

Sunderland at 3/1 with Coral is just too short for a side with one win to their name and coming off the back of ten unanswered goals against them. It's also exactly six months since they won away in the Premier League. There were signs of encouragement in their 2-0 defeat to Arsenal last week but not enough for me to invest at 3/1.

Under 2.5 Goals seems a reasonable destination when plotting a bet here. Palace were in the bottom three last season for goals scored, and that's exactly where Sunderland sit now with just eight notched in nine games. BetVictor have priced that up at 31/40 (just shy of 4/5) and that's where I'm going here. Sunderland boss Gus Poyet has stipulated that defence will be the key factor in this game for his side, and you get the impression that a clean sheet will mean just as much as a win here.

Under 2.5 Goals has paid out in five of the last eight Sunderland league games, and in three of the last six Palace encounters. I hate putting up odds-on shots but I can't see much value in this particular game. There will be better betting opportunities over the next few days.

Best Bet

Crystal Palace v Sunderland – Under 2.5 Goals (31/40 BetVictor)