Crystal Palace vs Brondby

Crystal Palace and Brondby are set to trade tackles at the Crystal Palace Academy in only their second encounter ever. The sides last met in the summer of 2020, with that friendly ending 1-1.

Crystal Palace’s off-season campaign was off to an abysmal start as lower-league Barnet stunned Roy Hodgson’s side 1-0 last week in their opening summer friendly. That result marked the continuation of Palace’s underwhelming patch, as they’re now winless in four of their five most recent matches (D2, L2), managing just one clean sheet in this period. Hodgson has a whole summer to prepare the ‘Eagles’ for life after Wilfried Zaha, as the club’s headline performer left Selhurst Park upon the expiry of his contract on June 30. Zaha’s departure could reflect negatively on Palace’s scoring output. After three scoring showings on the bounce toward the tail-end of last season, the Londoners failed to get on the scoresheet in their first post-Zaha outing.

It’s hard to tell whether Brondby can take advantage of Palace’s form woes, given their own problems with inconsistent performances. The Danes have alternated between winning (2) and drawing (3) across their last five matches, most recently sharing the spoils with Swansea City in a tepid scoreless stalemate. But the ‘Boys from Vestegnen’ could still prove hard to beat, having only lost once in their last eight games (W4, D3). Despite their promising recent spell, Jesper Sorensen’s men remain prone to conceding cheap goals. Before shutting Swansea out, Brondby had gone six consecutive fixtures without a clean sheet, though only two of those outings saw them capitulate multiple times.