Crystal Palace v Ipswich Town Betting Tips: Both teams to have joy at Selhurst Park

Premier League hosts Championship in this League Cup tie as out-of-sorts Crystal Palace take on in-form Ipswich Town.

Ronald De Boer’s arrival at Crystal Palace meant there was a lot of optimism around the club going into this season, however, reality has hit them hard and two defeats in two games means they are now 19th in the table. However, the League Cup presents a chance to pick up a result in a lower pressure environment.

Dutchman De Boer was hired to bring an attractive style of play to Palace, however, although we are only two games in, the signs are not good with zero goals scored and four conceded. It seems that the former Ajax manager is asking the players to do things with the ball that they incapable of doing. The squad had arguably only just got used to the more defensive tactics of previous manager Sam Allardyce and are now being asked to do something completely different. It is unsurprising that things are going so badly at the moment. Again though, as mentioned above, this League Cup tie is a chance to build some confidence and perhaps score a few goals.

Palace’s only home match under their new boss ended in a rather embarrassing 3-0 defeat to newly-promoted Huddersfield Town. However, in terms of the League Cup, the Eagles have an excellent record at Selhurst Park with just two defeats in normal time in this competition on home turf since September 2004.

As I predicted here, Ipswich kept up their impressive start to the Championship campaign with a win against Brentford at the weekend, putting them second in the table.

Prior to that win against Brentford, the Tractor Boys were scoring a lot of goals (nine in total) but also conceding plenty (four in total) in their four competitive outings. This is unusual for a Mick McCarthy team whose sides are usually quite conservative going forward but reliable at the back. Having said that, things seemingly went back to normal at the weekend as McCarthy’s men recorded a clean sheet and scored a rather modest two goals.

Ipswich have been excellent on their travels so far this campaign with three wins from three competitive outings away from Portman Road. However, the four Goals Against I mentioned above were all conceded away from home. Their only away clean sheet of the season came against League Two Luton Town in the previous round of the League Cup. In fact, that League Cup win at Kenilworth Road a couple of weeks ago was Ipswich’s first League Cup away win in normal time since September 2010. However, with things going quite well at the moment, confidence will be flying and they will fancy their chances against a Premier League side in poor form.

Although Ipswich are in good form, Palace are clearly the better team on paper and have a good home record in this competition. All of this makes Tuesday’s match a hard one to call. The Tractor Boys are scoring goals for fun at the moment and I can see them finding the back of the net against a poor Palace defence. However, as I said earlier, Palace are a decent side on paper and, despite the fact they have not scored a goal yet this season, they should be able to take a chance against a Championship side. Both Teams to Score is surprisingly profitable at 22/19.