Chelsea vs Crystal Palace Preview, Team News, Likely Line-Ups, Prediction & Betting

Chelsea will look to finally secure the Premier League title when they face Crystal Palace at Stamford Bridge on Sunday afternoon.

The Blues head into the game sitting 13 points clear at the top of the table so can clinch their first title in five years with victory at the Bridge with three games to spare.

Jose Mourinho’s men came from a goal down to beat Leicester City 3-1 at the King Power in midweek to put themselves on the cusp of sealing the title so they’ll be hoping to wrap things up with minimal fuss tomorrow.

Palace could be viewed as the ideal opposition as the have little left to play for this season with the Eagles currently sitting 12th in the table so have secured their top flight status for another season.

They come into this match off the back of two straight defeats, so Alan Pardew will be hoping to get back on track and stop their season from slipping away prematurely.

Team news

Mourinho has already confirmed that Diego Costa will miss the match as he doesn’t want to take any unnecessary risks with the striker and he may not play again this season if the Blues wrap-up the title tomorrow.

Loic Remy is fit and available after recovering from a calf injury so he’s expected to replace Didier Drogba up front.

Thibaut Courtois is back in contention after a minor hip injury but Mourinho may opt to stick with Petr Cech in goal to give the long-serving keeper the ideal send-off ahead of his expected exit this summer.

As for Palace, Frazer Campbell is a doubt with a hamstring injury while Joel Ward and Joe Ledley are also likely to miss out with foot and hip problems.

Likely Line-Ups

Predicted Score

Chelsea 2-0 Crystal Palace: The hosts have been grinding out results lately but they showed great character to come from behind to beat Leicester in midweek, and I think they’ll make easy work of beating Palace tomorrow to secure the title.

Betting Tips

Chelsea are the 4/11 favourites to win the game but if you want to find a bit more value then our prediction of 2-0 is on offer at 8/1 while I also like the look of Eden Hazard to open the scoring at 7/2. If we combine those bets in a scorecast then we get tempting odds of 14/1.

What do you think? What line-up would you like to see start?