Crystal Palace travel to Craven Cottage to face Roy Hodgson’s former side Fulham in Saturday’s London derby.
Hodgson finds himself short of centre-back options once more as Gary Cahill will miss the match after being on the receiving end of Lewis Dunk’s reckless challenge in the A23 derby last weekend which left him with a swollen shin.
Both Jordan Ayew and Jack Butland have been ruled out after testing positive for coronavirus, whilst James McCarthy and Connor Wickham remain sidelined due to injury. Nathan Ferguson and Wayne Hennessey are also unavailable.
Palace will want to bounce back from a drab draw with Brighton after their promising start to the season seems to have been cut short. The Eagles won their first two games of the season, including a 3-1 win away at Manchester United, but have not picked up three points in any of their last three, as they conceded a late goal against the Seagulls at Selhurst Park.
Here, Football FanCast have had a go at picking the starting line-up we are expecting to see at Craven Cottage, with Hodgson making a couple of changes from their last league game.
Vicente Guiata is expected to start in goal for the Eagles, although Hodgson will be hoping his first-choice goalkeeper comes through unscathed as he faces a shortage of options between the sticks. The 33-year-old should start behind a back four including Tyrick Mitchell, Cheikou Kouyate and Joel Ward, whilst Mamadou Sakho, described this month as a “liability” by the Exiled Eagles podcast, via This is Futbol, replaces the injured Cahill instead.
Andros Townsend looks likely to keep his place on the right, while Jairo Riedewald and James McCarthy will resume their partnership in the middle of the park. Eberechi Eze missed the match against Brighton, which may have been a mistake, as Palace only registered one shot throughout the entire game.
In his absence, Jeffrey Schlupp struggled with the Eagles on the back foot, so Hodsgon could opt for the summer signing instead, which would see Schlupp drop to the bench as a result.
With Jordan Ayew absent, Hodgson will be relieved to have both Michy Batshuayi and Wilfried Zaha available as attacking options, although Christian Benteke may make an appearance as a substitute.
AND in other news, Crystal Palace missed out on key summer signing in Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins…
The post Eze and Sakho start, Schlupp dropped: Crystal Palace Predicted XI vs Fulham first appeared on FootballFanCast.com.