Crystal Palace vs Arsenal preview

Team news, key stats and prediction ahead of Crystal Palace vs Arsenal in the Premier League on Saturday (kick-off 12.30pm).

• Premier League Table | Fixtures | Top scorers
• Charlie Nicholas' Premier League predictions
• Find out more about Sky Sports

Team news

Crystal Palace will be without captain Luka Milivojevic and several other players for the visit of Arsenal, but new loan signing Cenk Tosun is available after being registered in time following his arrival from Everton on Friday.

The club did appeal against Milivojevic's red card in the 1-0 home FA Cup defeat to Derby, but the decision was upheld and he will miss the next three Premier League games.

Wilfried Zaha, Jairo Riedewald and Max Meyer are expected to feature against Arsenal after recovering from knocks, but Joel Ward (knee), Scott Dann, Victor Camarasa (both calf), Mamadou Sakho, Patrick Van Aanholt (both hamstring), Jeffrey Schlupp (hip), Andros Townsend (groin) and Christian Benteke (muscle) remain out.

Hector Bellerin could return for Arsenal with the right-back facing a late fitness test on a hamstring injury. The Spain international has missed the last eight games but is in contention to make his comeback in south London, although fellow defenders Kieran Tierney (shoulder) and Calum Chambers (knee) are missing.

Head coach Mikel Arteta is expected to recall the likes of Bernd Leno, Lucas Torreira and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang after they were rested for Monday's FA Cup win over Leeds.

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How to follow

Follow the action with our dedicated live blog. Highlights of the game will be published at 5.15pm on Saturday on the Sky Sports website and app plus the Sky Sports Football YouTube channel.

• How to watch Premier League highlights
• Live football on Sky Sports this week

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Opta stats

• Crystal Palace are unbeaten in their last three Premier League meetings with Arsenal (W1 D2) - they've never gone four consecutive league games without defeat against the Gunners.
• Arsenal have lost just one of their last 14 away league games against Crystal Palace (W7 D6), going down 3-0 in April 2017.
• Both Crystal Palace and Arsenal have scored at least twice in each of the last three Premier League meetings between the sides - no fixture in the competition has seen both sides score 2+ goals in four consecutive games.
• Crystal Palace have won four of their last nine Premier League London derbies (D2 L3), as many as they had in their previous 28 in the competition (W4 D5 L19).
• Arsenal are looking to record consecutive Premier League wins for the first time since winning their final game of 2018-19 and their opening two matches of this campaign.
• Luka Milivojevic and Jordan Ayew scored for Crystal Palace in their 2-2 draw in the reverse fixture against Arsenal. The last time an Eagles player scored home and away against the Gunners in the same league season was John Craven in 1971-72.
• Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is averaging a goal or assist every 88 minutes in Premier League London derbies (10 goals, 4 assists) and has scored against all five London teams he's faced, with two goals coming against Crystal Palace.
• The gap of 34 years and 229 days in age between Crystal Palace manager Roy Hodgson and Arsenal's Mikel Arteta will be the fifth-largest between two managers for a game in Premier League history - Arteta was born in the same season Hodgson was taking charge of his first English Football League games with Bristol City in 1981-82.

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Charlie Nicholas' prediction

It is a tough transition for Arsenal at the moment. There is a heartbeat in the team, and certainly more togetherness than what there was. It has a long way to go before it is fixed, but they are grafting away for Mikel Arteta.

He is working them harder at this stage of the season, physically, than what they would like, but they were a lazy team. They didn't understand what teamwork was, and because of that, Arteta has said they needed to work harder on the basics.

They have not got their mojo back, but there has been a couple of clean sheets, albeit fortunate ones, but he is getting a response. Crystal Palace are a better team away from home, so they will be happy to knock it back to front. Wilfried Zaha is getting tipped up to move once more - would that disturb them? It did last time, and I am hoping it does again. I am expecting Arsenal to squeeze and cause a lot of trouble for Palace.

CHARLIE PREDICTS: 1-2

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