There is a big game in London this weekend, one potentially worth a fortune and one whose consequences could be felt next season. There is also the League Cup final. Such is the modern-day reality for knockout competitions, where the prize money is dwarfed by the sums on offer in the league.
Such is the significance of Crystal Palace against Middlesbrough, a meeting of two teams who have taken contrasting routes into perilous positions.
“We are treating this as a final,” Middlesbrough manager Aitor Karanka said.
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Boro’s been a quiet slide, Palace’s a noisy decline. Whereas the Teessiders have maintained continuity, in the shape of the 2013 appointee Karanka, the Londoners have embraced change, dismissing Alan Pardew and taking out an insurance policy against demotion in the shape of Sam Allardyce, famously never relegated from the Premier League but failing to halt the fall.
Palace have taken nine points from 19 league games. Boro have four from eight. They have three victories in the FA Cup in the last two months, but none in the Premier League. Much has rightly been made of the statistic that the defending champions Leicester are yet to score a league goal this calendar year, but Boro have only mustered two.
They are endangered by their dullness and their defensiveness. Alvaro Negredo can be isolated as a lone striker. Adama Traore presents a lone threat on high-speed solo runs, but his delivery is erratic. Boro secured attacking reinforcements in January in Rudy Gestede and the former Palace loanee Patrick Bamford, but neither has a track record of scoring in the Premier League. Higher-calibre additions, whether Robert Snodgrass or Bojan Krkic, eluded them, perhaps preferring to play for teams that commit more men forward.
But the remarkable reality is that Boro have the fourth best defensive record in the division, better than Manchester City, Liverpool or Arsenal. They are undeniably well-drilled. A lack of goals is their principal problem, a lack of clean sheets Palace’s main issue. They have only two, one under Pardew, one under Allardyce, in the league.
The former England manager has been searching for solidity.
“However much we’ve talked about not conceding goals it still hasn’t happened,” he told Sky Sports. “My major objective is to convince the players that if we start with a clean sheet we are going to get out of trouble. We need to get those clean sheets quickly.”
Allardyce normally builds from the back. At Palace, he has a twist on the theme: he seems to be trying to build from leftbacks. Few clubs sign two in a transfer window, let alone for a combined £21 million. If two newcomers Jeff Schlupp and Patrick van Aanholt are pitted into competition with one another, a third addition, midfielder Luka Milivojevic, is charged with providing the defence protection.
If Palace cannot keep a clean sheet against a team whose last away goal came on New Year’s Eve, it would be damning. Yet the plight of these teams is such that unwanted statistics abound. There are reasons to believe each is capable of losing Saturday.
Palace have the division’s worst home record with only two wins at Selhurst Park all season and lost their last home game 4-0 to visitors from the north-east. Boro have not tasted victory on their travels since August. Palace have the more pronounced self-destructive streak: Boro, with their ability to keep opponents out, are at least capable of drawing 0-0, something they have done three times already in 2017. But lose and Boro could be in the bottom three for the first time this season. Lose and Palace could be bottom for the first time. The stakes are ominously high.
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