Southampton vs Crystal Palace Predictions

• Saints have lost 11 of their last 12 home matches in all competitions
• Palace have won seven of their last eight games in all competitions
• Southampton have conceded two or more goals in eight of their last nine home league games
• Crystal Palace have scored two or more goals in seven of their last nine away Premier League matches

Saints seek to salvage some pride

There is little hope that Southampton can stop a nine-game home losing streak in the Premier League when they entertain in-form Crystal Palace at St Mary’s on Wednesday night. Saints boss Ivan Juric admitted his side were going down after their 2-1 reverse to Wolves before the international break and little has changed to lighten the mood in the past few weeks.

Juric’s side sit bottom of the Premier League on just nine points from their 29 fixtures and remain on track to break a couple of unwanted records. Derby County’s all-time low tally of 11 points has yet to be surpassed and now Watford’s record of 11 straight home defeats is within sight if Saints lose to Palace and Aston Villa, who they host later in April.

It’s a matter of when, not if, Saints are relegated, so the question now is, can they salvage any pride? Typical of their season, any positives from the Wolves game were outweighed by poor defending. Until they can cut out such errors, they remain unbackable.

Defence of Palace has been staunch

Palace will head to the south coast in high spirits after clinching a place at Wembley with their 3-0 FA Cup quarter-final win over Fulham on Saturday. Marco Silva moaned about Adam Wharton not being sent off for a second bookable offence early on, but the Eagles were much sharper in the attacking third and deserved the win.

The win featured yet another away clean sheet for Palace’s defence, which has been the bedrock of their recent five-game winning run during which they have conceded only two goals. It is tempting to recommend a win to nil for Oliver Glasner’s side in this clash because they have kept seven consecutive clean sheets on the road dating back to mid-December.

But there is also the possibility that Glasner’s side could ease off in this clash because it falls between two much-bigger matches and looks so easy on paper. The Eagles welcome Brighton to Selhurst Park for the so-called M23 derby on Saturday and that promises to be much tastier than this.

Eze makes scoring look easy for Eagles

But the ease with which an Eberechi Eze-inspired Palace scored three goals against a good Fulham side on Saturday suggests they will have little trouble in breaching Saints’ mistake-ridden rearguard on multiple occasions.

Glasner’s men are the same price to score over 1.5 goals as they are to win the game and both options look attractive, backed as they are by some damning Saints stats. The south coast club have lost 11 of their last 12 home matches in all competitions with their only success coming against Championship strugglers Swansea. And they have shipped two or more goals in eight of their last nine home league games.

The Palace to win option gains the vote for best bet here because Glasner may choose to rest one or two of his stars for this midweek clash while midfielder Will Hughes is suspended. Mind you, Saints have proven capable of scoring against some better teams than Palace this year – such as Liverpool, Bournemouth, Newcastle and Forest. And if Juric’s side can muster a goal, Palace will need to score twice to get all three points anyway.