Crystal Palace v Leicester: Eagles look to boost survival chances

Crystal Palace will be looking to move a step closer to Premier League survival when they host Leicester on Saturday.

The Eagles are six points clear of the bottom three with three games of the season left to play.

They will move onto 38 points if they win this weekend, and manager Roy Hodgson has suggested that might be enough to stay up.

"It would seem to be a good total this year, with so many teams not close to that," he said.

"As far as we are concerned, we try to win all three matches and take no chances. I won't be relaxing until we are mathematically safe.

"We are much happier knowing it is up to us now. We are not looking up at people with more points and a big advantage in terms of the gap between us and them."

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Leicester are ninth and have seen their hopes of European football fade after two defeats in their last three matches.

However, manager Claude Puel said: "It is important to see our journey. When I got here, it was important to save the club. Now, we play in the top half of the table. We maintain the club, we saved the club, now it is important to put in place a good foundation."

Team news

Crystal Palace have no fresh injury concerns. Jeffrey Schlupp and Connor Wickham have returned to training, but both are likely to be on the bench at best.

Scott Dann, Jason Puncheon and Bakary Sako remain long-term absentees.

Kasper Schmeichel and Shinji Okazaki have not recovered in time for Leicester.

Both players suffered ankle injuries at Burnley on April 14 and missed the goalless draw with Southampton last week. Ben Hamer is likely to retain his place in goal in Schmeichel's continued absence.

Daniel Amartey will make his return from a hamstring injury for the U23 side on Friday night so the Premier League clash with Palace will also come too soon for him.

Opta facts

• Crystal Palace have won just one of their last five Premier League meetings with Leicester (D1 L3), though it was in the reverse fixture back in December (3-0, their first away win of the season).
• Palace are looking to secure back-to-back home Premier League wins for the first time since April 2017 (a run of three).
• Crystal Palace have shipped more first-half goals than any other Premier League side this season (28), while only the current top six have scored more in the opening 45 minutes than Leicester (23).
• Only Harry Kane (15) and Mo Salah (13) have scored more away Premier League goals this season than Jamie Vardy (9).
• Indeed, the England striker has scored four goals across his last six Premier League games in London, having netted just two in his first 11 top-flight games in the capital.

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Merson's prediction

I've been surprised by Leicester, they've been disappointing. With the World Cup on the horizon some of their players have just gone off the boil. Palace always seem to concede and they have made things harder for themselves this season, but they have done great to get out of trouble and I fancy them to secure their top-flight status against the Foxes.

PAUL PREDICTS: 2-1 (15/2 with Sky Bet)

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