Crystal Palace v Sunderland: Eagles to take winning chance

After Hull and Cardiff both pulled off maiden Premier League wins the pressure is on fellow promotees Crystal Palace not to get left floundering and with Sunderland the visitors, this shouldn’t be a problem.

As the saying goes, never look a gift-horse in the mouth, and if you’re Ian Holloway then notoriously poor travellers Sunderland represent perfectly said metaphorically generous steed.

The home side might have lost out narrowly in their first two games, but there has been plenty of encouragement they’ll not become the whippings boys many predicted.

Now they have a gilt-edge chance to dispel that theory further still by getting one foot on the win-ladder at odds of 6/4 by defeating Sunderland.

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Sunderland arrive winless in the league themselves, having followed up a home loss to Fulham with a draw at Southampton, where they spent nearly the entire 90 minutes clinging on to a 1-0 lead thanks to new signing Emanuele Giaccherini’s third-minute header.

The Black Cats do not normally fair well on the road as 11 losses from their 19 Premier League outings last season testifies. Although Paolo Di Canio can only be attributed for three of those, a 6-1 chastening at Aston Villa sticks in the memory.

With Steven Fletcher still unlikely to be fit enough and question marks over Stephane Sessegnon, the visitors lack firepower and this could be their Achilles heel again.

While Palace are not blessed with oodles of attacking flair themselves, Marouane Chamakh’s first strike at Stoke bodes well for the Morrocan, who is 7/1 to get proceedings going again here.

However, a tally of just one goal apiece so far, a TV classic seems highly unlikely with 21/10 on under 1.5 goals worthy of real consideration and the under 2.5 at 7/10 is worth sticking in any weekend accumulator.