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We are five games into the new Premier League season and Crystal Palace are yet to score a league goal, let alone register a point.
Will that change when they travel to joint-leaders Manchester City on Saturday, or is that game a dead-cert for a home win?
BBC Sport's football expert Mark Lawrenson is going for a City victory, although he does have some positive news for beleaguered Eagles fans.

"Although City are full of goals and I think they will win convincingly, I don't see this turning into a battering," Lawro said. "Palace boss Roy Hodgson is not the sort of manager to allow that to happen."

Lawro's opponent for this weekend's fixtures is actor Mark Strong, star of 'Kingsman. Strong, 54, is an Arsenal season ticket holder, starred in 'Fever Pitch', and says he did not have much choice when it came to becoming a Gunners fan.
He told BBC Sport: "I was born in Islington and grew up in Islington so Arsenal was all around me and supporting them was kind of unavoidable. "The first season I started going to watch them was when we did the Double in 1971, so my first heroes were Charlie George, Ray Kennedy and John Radford."But since then I have loved watching Dennis Bergkamp, Robert Pires and Thierry Henry - and these days Alexis Sanchez is always the best player on the pitch. "When I go to games and watch him, there is something about the electricity he generates when he is on the ball that is just fascinating."

Lawro says

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/41351953

This game is the start of a really difficult run for Palace, who follow it up by playing Manchester United (away) and Chelsea (home).

It does not really get much tougher than that but new Eagles boss Roy Hodgson will learn a lot about his players and, however many or few points they pick up, he will be left with 30 games to keep them up.

City are in fantastic form and nobody is expecting Palace to get anything on Saturday, so you would not say they are under pressure either. If they do, it will be a bonus.

Lawro's prediction: 3-0

Strong's prediction: I was going to say 4-0 but come on, let's help Palace to get a goal. 4-1

Merson Says

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/ ... m-and-more

This is Roy Hodgson's sort of match. I was worried about the Southampton fixture when he arrived because he's not very good at setting up teams to win. He's not the type of manager to chase a result.

He's more tactical in terms of trying to stop his opposition playing. That's where he is more comfortable, so these three games - against City, Man Utd and Chelsea - are probably more suited.

Having said that, City are playing in a different league at the moment. Look what they did to a Watford team that seems pretty good this year.

Pep Guardiola's side look irresistible and even if they go 1-0 down, they just bring on the big guns and go for it.

PAUL PREDICTS: 4-0 (Sky Bet odds 7/1)

Merson babbling about this being Roys type of game and predicts a 4-0??

Well they all talk rubbish, but I will take any of their predictions.

Wonderwall wrote:
Merson babbling about this being Roys type of game and predicts a 4-0??

Ah yeah! But without Roy's know-how it could be 8-0.

Take any old win. On paper this has the potential to be our double figures game. But with a new manager and the law of averages saying they must play well or get lucky at some point, I just hope it's not against us and we get the three points.

An early goal or two and it could be any score though.

nottsblue wrote:Take any old win. On paper this has the potential to be our double figures game. But with a new manager and the law of averages saying they must play well or get lucky at some point, I just hope it's not against us and we get the three points.

An early goal or two and it could be any score though.

a tenner on them to win at 25/1 wouldn't be the worst bet in the world... (wouldn't be the best either!).

Nigels Tackle wrote:

nottsblue wrote:Take any old win. On paper this has the potential to be our double figures game. But with a new manager and the law of averages saying they must play well or get lucky at some point, I just hope it's not against us and we get the three points.

An early goal or two and it could be any score though.

a tenner on them to win at 25/1 wouldn't be the worst bet in the world... (wouldn't be the best either!).

Draw and away win at 7s probably better value.

nottsblue wrote:Take any old win. On paper this has the potential to be our double figures game. But with a new manager and the law of averages saying they must play well or get lucky at some point, I just hope it's not against us and we get the three points.

An early goal or two and it could be any score though.

Likewise NB.

With Ederson back, we've got some chances of keeping a clean sheet but Woy is going to make scoring for us a difficult task. When he first took over the England job, he organised a mediocre bunch of players into a difficult to beat unit; it was awful to watch and showed no ambition but he was in his comfort zone doing this.

He's had a bit of time to think and plan how to frustrate us and we aren't going to score four, five or six goals every week, so this could be a real struggle for us.