BURNLEY, ENGLAND - MARCH 01: (EDITORS NOTE: A star filter was used for this image.) General view inside of the stadium ahead of the Premier League match between Burnley and Leicester City at Turf Moor on March 01, 2022 in Burnley, England. (Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
All change at Palace ahead of our visit
Burnley are back on the road tomorrow with a trip to Selhurst Park to take on Crystal Palace where it’s been all change this week since their 1-1 draw at Everton last Monday with Roy Hodgson, who had been taken ill last Friday, standing down and replaced by Oliver Glasner.
Never mind Palace, it’s critical now that we start winning games and plenty of them if we can have any thoughts of staying up. Along with Sheffield United, we look doomed, with both of us on thirteen points. The lowest number any team has ever had at this stage of a Premier League season and survived is seventeen which shows just how difficult, or near impossible, it is.
Luton, who went up with us and the Blades last season, occupy the other relegation slot with twenty points, behind Everton on goal difference. Everton are the confusion in it all right now. Without a points deduction they’d be sitting safety in twelfth place and presumably well clear of any relegation threat.
That leaves Palace with Brentford and Nottingham Forest, the two teams either side of them, as the next most vulnerable and they are all running at a point per game right now or very close to it and that suggests, should Everton win their appeal, it’s going to take a minimum of 36 points for a team to stay up which would leave us needing a further 23 points from our remaining thirteen games.
It’s been difficult all season but last week’s shocking 5-0 home defeat against Arsenal has tipped the scales even more against us in the eyes of the supporters with those present last week either leaving dumbstruck or having gone home long before the end.
That was the worst of the season. We plummeted horrifically against one of the best teams in the league currently and just had no answer to them. The defeat could have been by far more than five goals too.
I suppose going to Palace might be considered one of the best places to go to when a result is needed. It will be our eighth Premier League visit there and so far we’ve won three, drawn two and lost two. Our last defeat there came at the beginning of December 2018 when goals from James McArthur and Andros Townsend gave them a 2-0 win.
