Crystal Palace welcome Ipswich Town to Selhurst Park on Saturday, hoping to continue their recent upsurge under Pierre Sage.
Palace suffered defeat at Everton on the opening day of the season before being easily swatted aside on home soil by Manchester City a week later. Since then though, the Eagles have got back to form and racked up back-to-back, morale-boosting wins.
Edging a topsy-turvy London derby at Fulham last weekend was the springboard for a controlled and comfortable win over Middlesbrough in the League Cup a few days later. Now, Sage is hoping they can channel that confidence into a meeting with the newly-promoted Tractor Boys and rack up three on the spin ahead of their Europa League campaign beginning in midweek.
Each side will be viewing this game as a golden chance to strike an early psychological blow on the other, as both look to prove the bookmakers wrong and avoid lowly finishes in the top flight.
The hosts could be boosted by the return to availability of midfielder Cheick Doucouré with his nightmare, 18-month spell seemingly over. The Mali international has had rotten luck with injuries over the past few years, suffering a ruptured Achilles in late 2023 and then a meniscus tear in early 2025.
His last appearance of any kind was January 2025 – 20 months ago – although it was hoped he would feature against Boro only for illness to rule him out.
Issuing a positive update on Doucouré, his manager said: “He trained yesterday and this morning. All will be good for him. He was a little ill, but no, he’s fine.
“We’ll see tomorrow because of the fatigue from playing Saturday and Tuesday night, so we have to check tomorrow. Today went well, but tomorrow will be better. Until then [tomorrow] we cannot give an accurate list.”
Sage also confirmed that star duo Ismaïla Sarr and Jean-Philippe Mateta both remain unavailable.
Ipswich manager Gary O’Neil, meanwhile, has given his full backing to his goalkeeper Kjell Scherpen after a series of errors in their defeats to Manchester United and Liverpool.
He said: “I think he had basically no part to play in the 5-2 at Old Trafford. In the Liverpool one, of course, there are parts in the goals that Kjell needs to do better with, but not just him, other people too.
“The save he makes from (Dominik) Szoboszlai is a world class save. There’s not many goalkeepers getting down to that with the speed that Szoboszlai hits the ball.
“Kjell has our backing. He’s a good goalkeeper. He’s obviously adapting to a new style, a new back four, a new league. I’ve no problem with where Kjell’s at.
“We’re helping him, we’re working with him. He has my full belief that he’ll help us tomorrow because Crystal Palace cross the ball a lot.
“Some of the work goalkeepers do can go unnoticed because the focus will be on those moments where you either do or don’t save your team. He’s done an awful lot of good stuff.”
