Ipswich suffered a narrow, but fair 0-1 defeat away to Nottingham on Saturday. Ipswich, who went into the match as a clear underdog, performed as expected overall and in the big picture, the Tractor Boys' performance has developed in a positive direction. The match also had a negative burden when defender Axel Tuanzebe was out for months due to a hamstring injury.
Crystal Palace continued their positive performances compared to expectations, even though they had to fight for their 1-1 draw at home against Newcastle until extra time. Palace, who went into the match as underdogs, performed clearly better than Newcastle in terms of xG statistics and with similar game events, a home win would be significantly more likely than a draw. Or what do say about these stats? I say crazy, and it seems Palace are finding their way finally! It was also extremely important to get Eze back to the starting lineup and he is the player who can make the difference tonight. Watch out!
We sided with Ipswich last round away at Nottingham, but they deservedly but narrowly lost, and their class is bottom-3 whereas Palace could have been a top-10 contender.
Ipswich is in their best form of the season, but Tuanzebe's absence from the defense has once again added uncertainty to their defensive consistency and recently Ipswich have overperformed themselves, with a schedule like they are likely to collapse soon to a big defeat. Crystal Palace, who are ahead in terms of their fundamentals, deserve a fairly clear 45% favorite position, although breaking the hosts' low block is not entirely to their strengths at the moment.