Eng. Championship
2012-11-03 - Crystal Palace vs Blackburn Rovers
A Sports Betting Pick by Auls
Football: English Championship
Saturday 3 November 2012 - Kick Off 3pm
Crystal Palace
At the time of writing, the rumours suggest that Ian Holloway will be the new manager of Crystal Palace by the time they kick off on Saturday afternoon. However, it is still unclear whether he will be in the dugout for that game with a few things still to be hammered out if indeed Holloway is to take charge of the surprising Palace team.
I call Palace 'surprising' because they were not tipped to be amongst the leading teams in the Championship this season, yet they find themselves in 4th place in the table and only 4 points behind leaders Cardiff City. The side have a 3-2-1 record at Selhurst Park, scoring 14 goals and conceding 12 in those games.
There would have been many predicting a downward trend in results when Dougie Freedman left the club to take over at Bolton Wanderers, but that has not been the case and Palace have extended their unbeaten run to 10 games, including an impressive 1-2 win at Leicester City last weekend. 5 of those have come at home, although Palace failed to record a 4th win in that run when they blew a 2-0 lead against Millwall.
Blackburn Rovers
While Crystal Palace are waiting to see if they have a new manager in time for this game, Blackburn Rovers have appointed Henning Berg as manager during the week. Berg is a surprise choice as Blackburn were linked with 'bigger' names, while it was their former defender that openly blamed the owners for the sides relegation back in May.
Now Berg takes over while the club are sitting in 5th place in the Championship and in a very good position to try and earn automatic promotion back to the Premier League following relegation. Blackburn have found better performances on their travels, but the results haven't matched that as they are 1-5-0, scoring 11 goals and conceding 9.
Blackburn come into this game with a bit of confidence behind them as they have won back to back League games, both at home, while snapping a run of 5 games without a win. The team have drawn their last 3 away games since a 3-5 win at Bristol City back in September.
Head to Head
The last time these teams met was in the 2004/05 season when they played out a 0-0 draw here as Premier League sides.
Blackburn Rovers had previously won on 3 of 4 visits to this ground before that draw and they have now lost just 1 of 6 here.
Prediction
This is a tough game to predict as I think Crystal Palace have been in the better form, but Blackburn Rovers may have received a boost usually associated with teams that pick up a new manager.
To be honest, Palace may also have a new manager at the time of kick off, so it is tough to pick a winner although Armchair Punter, another tipster on this site, fancies Palace in the 'draw no bet' market.
Personally I like the chances of seeing over 2.5 goals in the game at just a little under odds against.
Palace have scored at least 2 goals in 5 of their 6 home games this season, while they haven't kept a clean sheet and conceded at least 2 goals in 3 straight games here.
My bigger concern is the sudden lack of goals in the Blackburn Rovers team, but the likes of Jordan Rhodes and Nuno Gomes will get chances you feel in this game and I was expecting the over 2.5 goals option to be priced lower than it is so it holds a spot of value for me here.
The Pick :
Crystal Palace 2-2 Blackburn Rovers
