Everton vs Crystal Palace Match Preview: Past Meeting, Form, Team News & More
Everton entertain resurgent Crystal Palace at Goodison Park on Saturday with a managerial war of words bubbling nicely under the surface.
Sam Allardyce and Roy Hodgson no longer see eye to eye over the former's mocking of the latter and, coupled with the last meeting's controversy, this one could just be a low key cracker.
Here's all you need to know ahead of the Premier League clash.
Previous Meeting
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The Toffees and Eagles played out a 2-2 at Selhurst Park in November in a match that led to Oumar Niasse becoming the first player to be retrospectively banned for diving.
The Everton striker won a penalty as he went down under a challenge from Scott Dann just five minutes after James McArthur's opener after 50 seconds - referee Anthony Taylor pointing to the spot despite the hosts' protests.
Leighton Baines levelled from 12 yards before Wilfrid Zaha put Palace back in front 10 minutes before the interval.
But Niasse then struck himself on the stroke of half-time and, after a tight second 45, the teams were forced to share a point apiece.
Form
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Everton head into Saturday's contest with just four points accrued from the last 18 available, and suffered an embarrassing 5-1 drubbing at the hands of Arsenal seven days ago.
The Blues had bagged a point against West Brom before securing a slender 2-1 home win over Leicester before that, but three successive defeats in the league ahead of those games means Allardyce and his men have it all to do.
Palace, meanwhile, have lost three of the last eight but have performed well on the road lately - Hodgson's men securing two wins and four draws in the past eight games away from home.
They too suffered a heavy 4-1 loss to Arsenal at the Emirates on 20th January, but draw their last game away from Croydon 1-1 against fellow Londoners West Ham.
Team News
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Allardyce only has Maarten Stekelenburg (groin), Leighton Baines (calf) and Ramiro Funes Mori (knee) unavailable to him as his injury crisis finally relents.
The latter of those three stepped up his recovery from a year-long battle with a cruciate knee ligament tear and should be able to feature in the next month or so.
Hodgson, by contrast, has nine first-team players out injured - the latest being Wilfried Zaha who suffered a knee injury last time out against Newcastle United.
Other notable absentees include Scott Dann, Martin Kelly, Conor Wickham and Bakary Sako.
Potential Everton Lineup: Pickford; Coleman, Keane, Williams, Martina; Gueye, Schneiderlin; Walcott, Rooney, Sigurdsson; Tosun.
Potential Crystal Palace Lineup: Hennessey; Ward, Tomkins, Fosu-Mensah, Van Aanholt; Cabaye, Milivojevic, McArthur; Townsend, Benteke, Lee.
Prediction
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Palace head into the contest in just slightly better form than their opponents and Hodgson will be determined to get one over his managerial counterpart for his comments about the veteran boss' speech impediment.
The Eagles, however, haven't beaten Everton since September 2014 and haven't scored in three of the past six meetings.
Allardyce will hope his team's decent home record will stand them in good stead to chalk up a vital win, and that's exactly what the 63-year-old should get.
Predicted scoreline: Everton 2-1 Crystal Palace
