Crystal Palace vs Tottenham Picks and Predictions: Both Sides Find Back of the Net

Wednesday gives us a clash between two teams at opposite ends of London. Crystal Palace vs. Tottenham will take place under the floodlights and both teams need to continue picking up points.

Palace and Spurs come into this on opposite ends of 2-0 results, for Crystal Palace it was an away win on the South coast, while Tottenham slumped to defeat on New Year's Day. Don’t miss our Crystal Palace vs. Tottenham Hotspur picks and predictions to find out our best bet for this tilt.

Crystal Palace vs Tottenham best odds

Crystal Palace vs Tottenham picks and predictions

It goes without saying that picking up three points is important for both teams, but for Spurs, it’s feeling like a must win. Spurs are just outside the Champions League spots but it feels like a moment of crisis for the North London club.

Since the Premier League resumed after the World Cup, they’ve picked up just one point — drawing with Brentford and losing to Aston Villa — both games they’d expect to win. Antonio Conte is struggling to get his team playing and the supporters are losing patience.

So what’s our best bet for this one? That would be for both teams to score. In 16 games, we’ve seen Crystal Palace allow 21 goals, with Tottenham giving up 25 goals in 17.

One of the biggest issues for Spurs is that there’s a feeling they don’t score enough, but in reality there’s only three teams who have scored more than them this season.

They’ve notched 33 goals in those 17 games and with Harry Kane, Son Heung-Min, and Dejan Kulusevski they have slite players who can destroy teams. The issue is that Conte’s tactics don’t allow his team to dominate games, despite being packed with more talent than most. It’s not exciting to watch and not overly attacking, although they will score against Crystal Palace here.

Unfortunately for the Tottenham faithful, they’re likely to concede too. Palace aren’t the highest-scoring team, but they have some great attacking players who can trouble a Spurs team that look like they’re short on confidence. Spurs have allowed their opponents to score in each of their last 10 competitive games, dating back to the middle of October.

With the firepower in Tottenham’s lineup and their failures to keep clean sheets, I’d recommend backing both teams to score here.

My best bet: Both teams to score - Yes (-125 at Caesars)

Crystal Palace vs Tottenham side analysis

The hosts Crystal Palace come into this fresh from beating Bournemouth 2-0. They went into that game in a 4-3-3 and it worked well. The brilliant Wilfried Zaha played down the middle, flanked by Jordan Ayew and Eberechi Eze.

The difference maker for Palace was Michael Olise who played deeper on the right of the three-man midfield. He will be a major threat against Tottenham, especially if he can break into the spaces left by Ivan Perisic when he ventures forward.

For Spurs, the biggest threats are, as always, Kane and Son. Both players are elite goalscorers, even if they haven’t been at their best this season, something they share with the bulk of this Spurs team. It was expected that Kulusevski would play against Palace but he missed the game with an injury and Conte will be hoping he plays here.

He has five assists on the season — more than anyone else on the roster — and shares great chemistry with Kane and Son. Tottenham haven’t lost any of the eight games he’s started this year and lost five of the nine that he hasn’t. That says a lot about his importance to this team.

At some point, you have to believe that Spurs begin to get things together and should win games like this, but given how they’ve played lately, it’s hard to find conclusive reasoning behind betting on them. Instead, I’d avoid and wager on other markets.

Crystal Palace vs Tottenham Over/Under analysis

The sportsbooks really aren’t sure how many goals we’ll see, with the Over/Under on the total goals line very close in odds on both sides of 2.5. 

If you look at Crystal Palace’s performances through the season, they’ve had Over 2.5 goals in exactly 50% of their games. Something, which again, points us towards this being a close bet, however when you dig deeper, that number increases to 62.5% when at Selhurst Park. 

With a great attack and a defense that has given up a lot of goals, it’s no surprise to see that Spurs have seen Over 2.5 goals in 62.5% of games on the road, marginally down on the 66.7% they have when playing at home.

Given the trends, as well as Tottenham's recently performances defensively, I’d lean towards backing Over 2.5 goals, although my best bet of both teams to score seems like a marginally safer option.

Crystal Palace vs Tottenham game info

Crystal Palace vs Tottenham key injuries

Crystal Palace: Sam Johnstone GK (Out), James McArthur CM (Out).
Tottenham: Richarlison STR (Out), Lucas Moura FWR (Out), Rodrigo Bentancur CM (Out). 

Crystal Palace vs Tottenham recent form

Teams	Last five matches
Crystal Palace	W-W-L-L-W
Tottenham	W-L-W-D-L

Crystal Palace vs Tottenham weather

Temperatures will be in the 50s at kickoff but it should be dry with rain scheduled to have stopped earlier in the day. 

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