Home tie against the Potters an opportunity for another three points

Friday is here already and with it comes a fresh weekend of football to look forward to and another opportunity secure three points. The game stirring the most interest this weekend is the Friday night matchup between Liverpool and Chelsea, Klopp vs Conte, the Italian general against Merseyside’s German tactician. For Palace fans however, the less glamorous (but perhaps no less exciting) tie that lies in store sees Stoke City travel down to South-East London in search of their first win of the season, with Palace themselves looking to build on last weekend’s duck-breaking win with another this.

Last weekend’s trip to Middlesbrough was encouraging for a couple of reasons, the most important of which was the simple fact that we won. Alan Pardew has repeated that it’s our home form that is the problem, that we can do a job away from home but when the onus is on us to go out and win a game in front of our own fans we fall short far too often.

This is not the whole problem.

I grant that our home form is poor – if the table had gone on home form alone last season we would have finished 18^th with just 21 points. However, the win at the Riverside was our first away from Selhurst since December – almost exactly 6 months of football passed without a win away from home. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that our away fixtures against the big five or six came in the second half of the season either, that six month run included away games against now relegated Villa & Newcastle while we failed to register a win against West Brom, Bournemouth & West Ham either. To not pick up a win in any of those fixtures ultimately has to be seen as much of a failure our disappointing home form.

Back to my point though. It was important for us to get off the mark in the league, the longer the winless run had stretched on the more mental baggage we would have taken into the following game. By the same token, it was important for us to win in a wider sense also because like I say, the reality is that we have struggled to both win games and win games away in the last six months.

With respect to injuries, we are in a much better place going into the Stoke game than we were last weekend. Both Bakary Sako and Connor Wickham are likely to be available while Yohan Cabaye was once again described as ‘touch and go’ by Pardew in his press conference so I wouldn’t hold your breath on that one, especially since Flamini has trained with the squad all week. Even though Connor is unlikely to start this weekend his return to fitness is definitely a positive in my eyes, even more so considering Remy’s injury prior to last weekend’s game. We had a relatively inexperienced bench last weekend and, particularly in the forward areas, there wasn’t an experienced forward that could lead the line if, God forbid, Christian Benteke had to be removed. Jonathon Benteke has potential of course but Wickham is a tried and tested option.

One player who will certainly miss out is Pape Souare who was sadly involved in a car accident late last week which has ruled him out for a few months at best. On a human level it’s obviously a tough one to take for everyone involved in the accident, it’s never nice to see anyone involved in an incident like this and will compound a tough period for Pape who is reportedly having a tough time personally with his father’s deteriorating health. On a footballing note, there is no doubt that his absence for an extended period will be a miss for the side. He brings a lot to the side going forward, particularly when it comes to delivering balls into the side and providing genuine width a trait Martin Kelly just doesn’t share playing on his weaker foot, even if he is better defensively.

As for Stoke, well there’s no doubt in my mind that their league position is not a true indication of their ability as a team. They’ve had a tough set of opening fixtures with home games against title hopefuls Tottenham and Manchester City sandwiching an away trip on Merseyside to face Everton. In terms of the quality of the squad, both Stoke and ourselves arguably have fairly even squads and players like Wilfried Bony, Arnautovic, Bojan & Shawcross (among others) will not be scrapping to avoid relegation come the end of the season.

One particular cause for concern in my eyes is our increasing shakiness from set pieces. We’ve gone from being one of the best at set pieces to a place where we’re slack and undisciplined when it comes to defending them. It was Ayala from a set piece last week, it was Rondon when we faced West Brom and Wanyama against Spurs - the problem is obvious to see. Mark Hughes has developed Stoke into a team no longer renowned for their physicality and size but they still have a squad that can take advantage in those situations and that is a cause for concern going into Sunday’s game.

Last weekend we were much better than the opening couple of games of the season and, more importantly, we won. There’s still room for improvement of course, defensively we have to be more astute against the what will be a better attacking force in Stoke and we need to do better when it comes to our final ball – if we do that Benteke will keep banging them in. This could be a great time to play Stoke, regardless of the quality of their players they could well be a bit tentative going into this game after failing to win this season and that could help Palace.

I certainly hope so.