Paul Merson predicted a sizeable win for Newcastle United ahead of Monday's clash with West Ham United and he, as did every other pundit, got it disastrously wrong.
In fact, Merson mentions his surprise at that result right off the rip in his prediction piece for Sportskeeda as he tries to guess the score between Newcastle and Crystal Palace.
It's an old-fashioned 3pm kick-off on Saturday at Selhurst Park and Newcastle will be desperate to put the disappointment of Monday behind them.
Although, Crystal Palace are more desperate for points as they languish near the bottom of the table. It could be a tense affair.
It may be tense, but Merson is also expecting it to be close as he can't separate the two sides.
"When you talk about results from last weekend, the one that I did not see coming was Newcastle losing to West Ham. I was expecting them to turn up and win easily. That is a really bad loss for Newcastle in my opinion. It baffles me how they ended up losing to that West Ham team!
"They now face Crystal Palace, who I thought were really good away from home against Aston Villa last time out. They looked like a serious threat on the counter and used pace to their advantage. You could say Palace rode their luck at times in that game, but so did Villa.
"Palace are 19th at the moment and will now face an uphill battle to avoid relegation. Southampton are the only team with fewer goals than them this season, so that's an area where they must improve if they want to survive in this division.
"I can definitely see Newcastle scoring in this game, but I have a feeling Palace can match them.
"Prediction: Crystal Palace 2-2 Newcastle United"
Neither side is exactly free-scoring right now so a 2-2 draw seems very ambitious by Merson.
Newcastle fans will be hoping that we can get one over on Palace after their transfer shenanigans this summer, stringing us along with hopes of landing Marc Guehi while they had no intention of selling.
A draw doesn't really help either side in their current situation, so we hope that Merson has got this one wrong. There are times when we will accept a draw, this is not one of those times.
PL | GD | PTS | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
1 |
Liverpool
|
12 | 16 | 31 |
2 |
Manchester City
|
12 | 5 | 23 |
3 |
Chelsea
|
12 | 9 | 22 |
4 |
Arsenal
|
12 | 9 | 22 |
5 |
Brighton
|
12 | 5 | 22 |
6 |
Tottenham Hotspur
|
12 | 14 | 19 |
7 |
Nottingham Forest
|
12 | 2 | 19 |
8 |
Aston Villa
|
12 | 0 | 19 |
9 |
Fulham
|
12 | 0 | 18 |
10 |
Newcastle United
|
12 | 0 | 18 |
11 |
Brentford
|
12 | 0 | 17 |
12 |
Manchester United
|
12 | 0 | 16 |
13 |
Bournemouth
|
12 | -1 | 15 |
14 |
West Ham United
|
12 | -4 | 15 |
15 |
Everton
|
12 | -7 | 11 |
16 |
Leicester
|
12 | -8 | 10 |
17 |
Wolves
|
12 | -8 | 9 |
18 |
Ipswich
|
12 | -10 | 9 |
19 |
Crystal Palace
|
12 | -7 | 8 |
20 |
Southampton
|
12 | -15 | 4 |