Crystal Palace host Arsenal in the first London derby of the new year this Saturday.
Despite being knocked out of the FA Cup by Championship side Derby, Roy Hodgson’s side had a successful festive schedule, picking up five points from three games.
Arsenal, who have looked much improved since Mikel Arteta took charge, will be looking to build on their last performance – against Manchester United – when they ran out 2-0 winners.
The two sides currently occupy ninth and tenth in the league and the Gunners will climb above Palace with a win.
talkSPORT’s GameDay special will bring you all the action and here’s how you can tune in to it all.
Crystal Palace vs Arsenal: How to listen
The Premier League clash will get under way at 12:30pm on Saturday, January 11.
Full commentary from Selhurst Park will be live on talkSPORT, with our coverage starting at 11am.
talkSPORT will bring you all the build-up before progressing with live and exclusive commentary of the games events.
To tune in, just click here for the live stream or click the radio player below.
You can also listen through the talkSPORT App, on DAB Digital Radio or on MW 1053 or 1089.
For more information about how to listen LIVE on talkSPORT click here.
Danny Murphy hits out at Arsenal midfielder Granit Xhaka
Crystal Palace vs Arsenal: Head-to-head
Recent history between the two sides favours Crystal Palace, with The Eagles currently undefeated in the last three meetings.
The fixture is rarely shy of goals, with the last four league games providing 18 with none of them featuring less than four.
When the two met in October 2019 Arsenal let slip an early two goal lead as goals from Sokratis Papastathopoulos and David Luiz within the first ten minutes were cancelled out by second half goals from a Luka Milivojevic penalty and a Jordan Ayew header.
There was also drama in the game as VAR ruled out a late winner for Arsenal before Matteo Guendouzi received a yellow card for ‘rugby tackling’ Wilfried Zaha as Palace broke on the counter.
Crystal Palace vs Arsenal: Match facts
- Crystal Palace are unbeaten in their last three Premier League meetings with Arsenal (W1 D2) – they’ve never gone four consecutive league games without defeat against the Gunners.
- Arsenal have lost just one of their last 14 away league games against Crystal Palace (W7 D6), going down 3-0 in April 2017.
- Both Crystal Palace and Arsenal have scored at least twice in each of the last three Premier League meetings between the sides – no fixture in the competition has seen both sides score 2+ goals in four consecutive games.
- Crystal Palace have won four of their last nine Premier League London derbies (D2 L3), as many as they had in their previous 28 in the competition (W4 D5 L19).
- Arsenal are looking to record consecutive Premier League wins for the first time since winning their final game of 2018/19 and their opening two matches of this campaign.
- Crystal Palace are the only side yet to score more than twice in a single Premier League match this season. Indeed, the Eagles’ Premier League games have seen fewer goals than other side’s matches this season (42), while Selhurst Park is the lowest scoring ground in the top-flight this term (18).
- Luka Milivojevic and Jordan Ayew scored for Crystal Palace in their 2-2 draw in the reverse fixture against Arsenal. The last time an Eagles player scored home and away against the Gunners in the same league season was John Craven in 1971/72.
- Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is averaging a goal or assist every 88 minutes in Premier League London derbies (10 goals, 4 assists) and has scored against all five London teams he’s faced, with two goals coming against Crystal Palace.
- Crystal Palace striker Connor Wickham has been involved in two goals in just 60 minutes of Premier League football this season (1 goal, 1 assist), scoring his first goal since November 2016 in the Eagles’ 1-1 draw with Norwich.
- The gap of 34 years and 229 days in age between Crystal Palace manager Roy Hodgson and Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta will be the fifth largest between two managers for a game in Premier League history – Arteta was born in the same season Hodgson was taking charge of his first English Football League games with Bristol City in 1981-82.
Crystal Palace vs Arsenal: Team news
Palace’s star man, Zaha, played with an injury in the 1-1 draw against Norwich and was rested for the cup defeat to Derby but Hodgson is hopeful the Ivorian will be fit for the clash against Arsenal.
He said: “I do [hope he’ll be back against Arsenal]. The fact is he was pressed into service against Norwich, probably defiant of the advice of the sport science and medical people.
“I wasn’t prepared to ask him to push himself through another game against medical advice for a cup match.”
Palace also lost Max Meyer and Jairo Riedewald during the draw at Carrow Road bringing the total number of absentees to 11.
Hodgson said: “Counting those two [Meyer and Riedewald] now, that makes 11.
“How many players are we going to need in our squad to put out what we would think is an equally valid 11 in games like this? I’ve never known a situation where so many players are injured, so many are perhaps long term injuries.
“We lost [Mamadou] Sakho in the Norwich game and today we lost Meyer and Riedewald who were in their turn, really, were covering for other places.”
Arsenal picked up no fresh injury concerns during their 1-0 FA cup win over Leeds but will still be without some first-team players.
Gabriel Martinelli recovered from a hamstring injury sustained in December for a 25 minute appearance against Leeds while Hector Bellerin still remains absent with the same injury.
While defenders Calum Chambers and Kieran Tierney are both long term absentees with the former expected to be out for six to nine months following surgery on a knee injury sustained in the 2-1 loss to Chelsea while summer signing Tierney is expected to return to full training in March after suffering a dislocated shoulder in the 3-1 win over West Ham.
