Sunderland shining value to beat Palace minus cup distractions

When scanning the weekend’s coupon for accumulator gold dust, there are normally a few value bets that leap of the page and Sunderland’s price to beat Crystal Palace has the gleam of bullion about it.

Ok, Sunderland are currently three places below Palace and right in the thick of the relegation mire.

But with things tighter than a duck’s rear at the bottom of the Premier League table, the 21/20 about the home side recording a win which would see them leapfrog the visitors looks too good to be true.

Because of their involvement in the latter stages of both domestic cup competitions the Black Cats’ current position of 19th can be viewed as somewhat false.

Now out of the FA Cup, Gus Poyet’s side have two games in hand over Tony Pulis’ Eagles and only survival on their minds.

Whereas their last two league defeats against Hull and then Arsenal preceded crucial cup ties, they had been on their best run of the season in the league beforehand – beating Fulham, Stoke and Newcastle while drawing with Southampton.

Palace are in pretty poor form themselves, having lost three of their last five top-flight fixtures, drawing the other, and are well known to be terrible travellers.

The Londoners own the third worst away record in the Premier League, with 10 losses from 13 road trips to date.

A measly return of six goals from those games is a divisional low and sums up their threat away from the siege mentality of Selhurst Park perfectly.

Meanwhile, of the last 10 games these sides have contested in league situations the away side have lost eight, while the other two ended in parity.

By beating some of the Premier League’s most illustrious sides in the cups, Poyet has proved he is on the right path with Sunderland and now is the time to start climbing the table, at Palace’s expense.

All Odds and Markets are correct as of the date of publishing.

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