It is nearly four years since Crystal Palace tasted defeat against their arch-enemies but, given how this season is panning out, Saturday’s meeting with Brighton could be filled with trepidation for their supporters.
While Patrick Vieira’s side find themselves in the familiar position of 12th – where they finished last season – just past the midway point, their rivals from down the A23 are in contention to qualify for Europe thanks in part to a scouting system that has become the envy of the country. Whereas the emergence of the Japan winger Kaoru Mitoma as the fulcrum of Roberto De Zerbi’s dashing side has provided Seagulls supporters with a new hero, Palace go into the game at Selhurst Park having won only once in their past 10 matches in all competitions and are expected to be without their own talisman, Wilfried Zaha, as he continues to recover from a hamstring injury.
The Ivory Coast forward has often proved a thorn in Brighton’s side, scoring eight times in just 14 appearances, including two in the semi-final of the Championship playoffs in 2013 that led to Palace’s promotion. But doubts are growing by the day over whether the 30-year-old will still be at the club when next season’s derby rolls around, as the lucrative five-year contract he signed in August 2018 nears its conclusion, with a move to Italy or elsewhere potentially on the cards.
Zaha’s future is not the only off-field issue proving a distraction to progress on the pitch at Palace. The long-running saga of attempting to redevelop Selhurst Park’s main stand to increase capacity by 8,000 to more than 34,000 – edging ahead of the Amex’s 30,750 – remains the priority of the chairman, Steve Parish, but planning permission for the £100m project has yet to be granted by the mayor of London despite approval from Croydon council last October.
The £20m paid by John Textor to increase his stake in Palace to more than 40% when the American businessman completed his takeover of Lyon in December will go towards that fund, with another large unknown sum understood to be paid this month as part of the agreement with Parish. Relations between the pair are believed have improved slightly after they were barely on speaking terms for weeks because of significant delays Textor faced in pushing through the €800m Lyon deal when Parish initially refused to allow him to switch his shares in Palace to his holding company Eagle Football Holdings.
Textor’s original £87m investment in August 2021 is understood to have helped clear most of Palace’s debts as well as gone towards funding the purchase of players such as Marc Guéhi, Joachim Andersen and Michael Olise in the summer of 2021, and the club’s new £20m academy. However, he is believed to remain frustrated at Parish’s hands-on approach and what he perceives as a lack of ambition in the transfer market that led to the arrival of only two players in January – the 20-year-old French midfielder Naouirou Ahamada for £10m from Stuttgart and Albert Sambi Lokonga on loan from Arsenal.
Those were the minimum requirements for Vieira, who has been desperate for reinforcements after being lauded last season when he succeeded Roy Hodgson and transformed Palace’s playing style as they reached the FA Cup semi-finals. The former Arsenal captain has shown signs of frustration during this campaign. Last month brought elimination from the Cup by the Premier League’s bottom club, Southampton, in the third round and the team have scored only 19 goals in 21 league matches, compared with 30 at this stage last year, in amassing the same number of points.
Palace have been hampered by limited options in midfield after Conor Gallagher’s return to Chelsea and the prolonged absence of the injured James McArthur, and by the lack of a reliable striker, with neither Odsonne Édouard nor Jean-Philippe Mateta quite fitting the bill. At least Olise gave Palace supporters something to smile about with his late equaliser against Manchester United last month after returning strongly from the knee injury that hampered him for several months at the end of last season.
Vieira can also usually rely on his solid central defensive unit of Guéhi and Andersen, although the Dane scored the 87th-minute own goal that rescued a point for Graham Potter’s Brighton in the clubs’ most recent meeting last January. That was the first time in four meetings that a decisive goal had not been scored in the 90th minute or later. Thanks to Christian Benteke’s strike in the fifth minute of stoppage time at the Amex in February 2021 Palace are two wins behind Brighton in the head-to-head.
De Zerbi, who said this week that the Premier League “suits my philosophy” amid links with a return to Serie A with Milan, will fancy his chances of extending Brighton’s advantage in his first taste of one of football’s more curious rivalries. “We would like to give the fans more satisfaction because, for us, Crystal Palace is not a normal game,” said the Italian.
