Can Crystal Palace bring their recent league turnaround into the FA Cup, when they travel to Brighton at 7.45pm on BT Sport 2?

It’s a testament to the job Roy Hodgson has done at Palace that, following a 3 week adjustment period after joining in mid-September, Selhurst Park’s finest have lost just 3 games in their last 15 Premier League fixtures compared to all of their first 7.

That run has seen the club lift from 20th to 14th, while picking up a wins against the likes of Southampton, Leicester and, most remarkably, Chelsea. Yet their greatest achievement might, unlikely as it sounds, be New Year’s Eve’s goalless draw against Man City, a result that brought the league leader’s free-scoring, record-breaking run of 17 consecutive wins to an end.



Not that Palace are high and dry relegation-wise. Despite leaping up the table, they are still only 2 points ahead of 18th place Stoke, the kind of deficit that can disappear in the blink of an eye. They also lack a major presence going forwards, with Christian Benteke scoring just once in 16 appearances. Still, the Belgian is likely Palace’s best option up front, and heads into the FA Cup tie at a Super Mega PGM of 18-22, ahead of Bakary Sako at 15-19 and Wilfried Zaha at 13-17.

Lurking just above Palace in 12th place are Brighton, who are making a decent fist of their first season in the English top flight. Though they aren’t miles away from the relegation zone points-wise, the Seagulls haven’t fallen too far from the middle of the table largely by avoiding any serious periods of bad form, the worst being a trio of defeats to Liverpool, Tottenham (both forgivable) and Huddersfield (less so) at the start of December.

Interestingly, though in Glenn Murray they have a slightly more consistent forward than available to Palace, Brighton are actually the third least prolific side in the league, with only West Brom and Swansea scoring fewer goals. Nevertheless Murray has the best Super Mega PGM, at 22-27, with Tomer Hemed not too far behind at 20-24.

The Seagulls’ slightly better form gives them an edge in what could be a pretty tight cup tie, at a Brighton/Crystal Palace Goal Supremacy spread of 0-0.2 alongside a Total Goals spread of 2.15-2.35.