Crystal Palace vs Chelsea 2013/14 Premier League season – what did CFC fans think?

Crystal Palace vs Chelsea 2013/14 Premier League season – what did CFC fans think?

Saturday afternoon sees the return of the Blues to Selhurst Park, a game that last season ended in a 1-0 win for the hosts, a John Terry own goal capping a lacklustre Chelsea performance to give The Eagles hope that Premier League survival was a possibility under Tony Pulis.

The game was played on Saturday 29th March last season, with the Blues remaining top of the league, one point clear of Liverpool and two clear of Manchester City, although Manuel Pellegrini’s team had played two matches fewer.

Chelsea are again top of the Premier League coming into this fixture and Palace are in a similar position to last season, currently in 15th, but it is hard to see a similar repeat of the last fixture’s outcome.

Last season, under the influential Pulis, Crystal Palace had done their homework for this game, defending deep and denying Chelsea space, while also increasingly threatening in attack in front of a sold-out and deafeningly loud Selhurst Park crowd, deservedly getting the win. This season, Neil Warnock takes the helm in his second spell as Palace manager (having previously managed The Eagles between 2007–2010), but has not enjoyed the same run of form as Pulis did since taking over.

Warnock will be keen to see his side get a repeat outcome, but it looks very unlikely; Chelsea boss José Mourinho having radically overhauled his side’s attacking talent since the summer and eager to add to their impressive start to the season so far, with 6 wins from 7 games.

To see how Chelsea fans may be thinking about this game, we looked at the Beat Your Manager! Fantasy Football data from this fixture last season, to see what players were picked for the lineups last year.

Beat Your Manager! Fantasy Football is a game similar to “Football Manager”, but applied to live football, where you manage your favourite Club and pick lineups, bench, formations and substitutions, all in real-time. When fans play the game, the Beat Your Manager team can measure the popularity of different players, by looking at how frequently they are selected for the starting lineup, substitutes bench or not selected at all. You can check out their Facebook page – https://www.facebook.com/beatyourmanager and follow them on Twitter – https://twitter.com/beatyourmanager

The app ran for the 2013/4 EPL season and is currently inactive while the developers are creating the revised version – we’ll keep you posted on when it’s going to re-launch.

Formation: A solid 4-4-2 the choice for Chelsea fans…
35 per cent Chelsea fans opted for a solid 4-4-2 formation for this game, with the next-most popular formation a double-pivot 4-2-3-1, selected by 28 per cent of fans, to give extra strength in midfield.

Goalkeeper: Cech the only choice for CFC fans…
Petr Cech got an impressive 91 per cent rating with Blues fans for this game, making him Chelsea’s 4th-most popular player, way ahead of rivals Mark Schwarzer (9 per cent fan rating) and Jamal Blackman (zero per cent fan rating; now at Middlesbrough). Mourinho agreed with the fans, Cech lining up for this game between the posts. Naturally this season Thibaut Courtois is the man in possession of the Number 1 shirt and not only is he Mourinho’s choice but according to a poll we recently ran here on ChelseaNews.com you voted for Courtois over Cech by 76% to 24% so over 3 times as many voters chose the young Belgian goalkeeper over the dependable Czech Republic veteran in a sample size of a healthy almost 4,000 voters.

Defence: Fans and Managers on the same page…
Branislav Ivanović was Chelsea’s most popular derfender for this game, his 96 per cent rating making him jointly the club’s most popular player on the pitch. Chelsea’s next three defender slots were very closely-ranked, with Gary Cahill (81 per cent), César Azpilicueta (80 per cent) and John Terry (78 per cent) all highly rated by fans. Mourinho agreed fully with the fans on the composition of the back four; unfortunately for both fans and Manager, Terry also conceded a booking and his o.g. was the deciding factor in the match. Ashley Cole missed this game through injury last season and now plys his trade at Roma so will similarly miss out this season, but Mourinho has additional defensive options in the arrival of Filipe Luis from Atlético Madrid.

Midfield: Alls changed, changed utterly…
Chelsea’s most popular midfielder for this game last season was Oscar, earning a 94 per cent rating from fans and 3rd-billing in the team popularity stakes. Frank Lampard (76 per cent) and Nemanja Matić (74 per cent) were next in line and closely-rated, with Willian taking the last midfield spot, on an above-average 59 per cent rating from fans. With Ramires injured, Mourinho fielded David Luiz (54 per cent fan rating) in a defensive midfield position instead of fan-favourite Oscar (although he did a straight swap between the players at half-time) and André Schürrle (44 per cent fan rating) ahead of Willian. Ramires is again injured for this fixture this season and with the departure of Lampard (Man City) and Luiz (PSG) and the arrival of Cesc Fabregas (from Barcelona), this weekend’s midfield will look substantially different.

Forwards: Hazard has to hazard with new competition for striker spot…
Eden Hazard was Chelsea’s most popular forward and jointly (with Ivanović) the club’s most popular player, scoring an incredible 96 per cent with the Blues fans. Fernando Torres (42 per cent) was the favoured second striker, with Samuel Eto’o (39 per cent fan rating) just missing the cut and Demba Ba (9 per cent fan rating) much further behind. Mourinho agreed with the fans on the forward pairing, but this was partly a result of options being so severely limited upfront. The arrival this season of the scintillating Diego Costa from Atlético Madrid who has only scored a mere 9 goals so far (note the sarcasm -sorry!) with the next nearest scorer on a decent 5 and Loic Remy signed from QPR also looking good for club and country with a goal for each in limited appearance time taking advantage of his opportunities and offering a genuine goal-threat off the bench or different option to Costa on the odd occasion the Spaniard has an off night which seems unimaginable on current form, anyway you get the point the new striker signings are certainly already more than making up for the departure of Torres to Milan so you woukd imagine the Blues would have too much for Warnock’s Palace this time around.

Thanks to our friends at http://beatyourmanager.com/ for the data and analysis. Check out other stats from last year’s game in the infographics available on our Facebook Page.