Reasons For Optimism

• Palace are in their worst league form for about 20 games.

• Forest are scoring more goals and conceding less goals than Palace at the moment.

• Palace usually need to score 2 goals to get anything from a game. Forest's defensive resolve has to keep that from happening.

• Palace have rarely outperformed their expected goal difference this season, but lately it's dropped off a cliff with teams converting chances against them.

• Dean Henderson is underperforming against his Post-Shot xG by the most at any point so far this season.

• They have a cup final to worry about. One game that might get them Europa league football! Some players might want to impress to make sure they start, but some might be playing it safe to make sure they are available.

• The main are of concern for Forest is the dip in the chances we are creating. xG is down, the quality of our chances is down. However we know if we create them, Chrissy Wood shall score them.

• Palace have proven themselves the third most boring team since we joined the Premier League in 2022. Forest love a simple 1-0 win and that has to be on the cards here.

Crystal Palace Form

Crystal Palace have spent much of the season chasing down their poor start. It took them until about the half way point of the season for their form to pull away from typical relegation battle points totals. Palace have avoided any long periods of poor form aside from their opening eight games, but have also struggled to put together a run of wins. Compare Forest's chart line below from gameweek 14 to 20 a sustained winning run which is missing from the Palace chart.

Crucially for Forest, Palace's form has dropped off a cliff recently. To be fair they have had a tough set of fixtures but if form breeds confidence then they should be lacking it, averaging one point per game over the last eight compared to Forest's 1.5 points per game.

The Story of Palace's Season

The Palace problem has been in converting chances. The signing of Nketiah was presumably made to help ease Mateta back into the team after his busy summer, but Nketiah hasn't proven his goal-scoring credentials from his youth days so far. Looking at Palace's Goal Difference compared to Expected Goal Difference, you can see they are bottom of the table so far this season. Falling short of their expected performance by 0.3 goals per game, which equates to around 11-12 goals across the season that they should either have scored or not conceded based on the actual chance quality involved.

You can see from the second chart below, this isn't a problem that's gone away for Palace. They are currently in their worst period for underperforming their expected goal difference.

When measured over the entire season, it's Palace's attacking woes that have caused the problems. Their Goals - Expected Goals is also -0.3 so over the season they are missing 11-12 goals worth of chances. At the other end of the pitch, their defensive record is in line with the expected goals against over the whole season.

Yet things have changed in the last few games as the timeline charts show. Palace are currently exceeding their xG in attack, but have started to concede almost a goal per game more than they should lately. It just goes to show a successful run needs things to be going right at both ends of the pitch at the same time.

In goal, Dean Henderson's currently in his worst form against the PSxG stats as well, which might explain the defensive issues.

Back in the real world of actual goals for and against, Palace are back to scoring around 1 goal per game and are in worse goal scoring form than Forest who still hover around 1.5 goals per game.

 At the other end Palace have started to ship goals out of the blue. Conceding almost 2.5 goals per game of late, having otherwise been fairly consistent this season as a decent defensive unit.

Both reasons for hope for Forest.

The worry for Forest is around the quality of chances being created at the moment. Forest's non-penalty xG is at its lowest average for the season so far, while Palace are back towards their low points of the season as well. It suggests this one might be a bit boring me thinks!

At this stage last season, Forest were creating around half a goal's worth more of chances per game despite being a fairly poor relegation-threatened side.

A Bit About Palace Being Boring & Scorelines

Crystal Palace have been the joint-second most boring team to watch since Forest got promoted to the Premier League in 2022. Their games have averaged just 2.7 goals, just ahead of the ultimate snooze festers, Everton. Forests 2.9 goals per game means we've got to see an extra 7-8 goals per season than Palace fans have. We can ignore the fact we've conceded more of them, its about excitement.

The chart on the right is the same table, but just for this season, Palace still ranks down as the 3rd most boring side to watch.

Palace have recorded fourteen different scorelines this season compared to Forest's seventeen different scorelines. A whopping five of Palace's games have ended as 2-2 draws. Forest's special scoreline is, of course, the 1-0 win, of which we have recorded seven, the most of any team this season. Forest only have one 0-0 draw to their record this season compared to Palace's three.

Since 2022 Palace have logged ten 0-0 games compared to Forest's three. Forest only tend to deliver a boring 0-0 once a season, Palace deliver them every ten games or so. Palace's most common winning scoreline is 2-0 compared to Forest's 1-0. Suggesting Palace either have a good day in front of goal, or they don't win, whereas Forest have been able to utilise the power of the clean sheet.

Forest's ten 2-3 defeats in the Premier League since 2022 is still the most recorded by any team in the Prem in that time :(

Forest are one of the top three sides this season for taking points from games where they score less than two goals. Palace sit in eighth place by the same metric, picking up 0.44 points less per game when they don't score 2 goals. If that went over a whole season, then Forest are 16 points more effective in low-scoring games.

Palace have only managed to score more than two goals in two of their games this season! Forest, by comparison, have scored 3+ goals in eight games.