With the Villans fixture against Palace at Selhurst Park on the horizon, we rewind the years and take a look at the past meetings between the sides ahead of Saturday’s clash.
2014/15
The teams met each for the first time last season in early December when Christian Benteke bagged the only goal in a 1-0 win at Selhurst Park to end Villa’s 9 game run without winning and to score only their 8th goal that season. It was a big relief for a Villa side, who had just lost Roy Keane as assistant manager and were also the league’s lowest scorers at the time.
The last time the teams met, which was only 30 days after their initial game against Palace last season, was on New Years day while Paul Lambert was still in charge at Villa and Alan Pardew was in the crowd as he was looking to take the Palace reigns from caretaker manager Keith Millen after the sacking of Neil Warnock.
The game at Villa Park ended 0-0, at the time Palace were in desperation in 18th and Villa were in a fairly comfortable 12th. There were few chances created – Yannick Bolasie’s hitting the crossbar being the only major opportunity either sides created in what was a fairly turgid game.
2013/14
In another season when the Claret and Blue Army lacked goals, Villa met Palace in December just after Palace had installed Tony Pulis as manager. In another blunt game, everyone was expecting a scoreless draw before Dwight Gayle scored an injury-time winner to stun Villa Park.
The teams didn’t meet again until mid-April that season at a stage when Villa were in the middle of a relegation dogfight, and the Eagles were safe under the guidance of Tony Pulis. Sadly for the Villans it was another 1-0 loss as Jason Puncheon slotted one home with 18 minutes left to give Villa their 4th consecutive loss as they desperately scrambled to stay in the Premier League.
Summary
This fixture tends to be quite boring, but neither Tim Sherwood nor Alan Pardew have met Villa and Palace managers respectively, which makes this one unpredictable and extremely interesting.
