Our series of pre-season members’ articles continues with a look at Crystal Palace.
We kick off our analysis by assessing their team displays against the 2015/16 campaign, before scanning their primary goal threats and creators.
We’ll also take time to compare their displays under both Alan Pardew and Sam Allardyce, with one eye on what the now managerless Eagles can offer in 2017/18.
After battling to beat the drop for most of the season, the Palace ended the last campaign in fourteenth position on 41 points – more or less identical to 2015/16, where they ended in fifteenth spot with 42 points.
In terms of a cutting edge, there was a definite improvement – a total of 39 goals in 2015/16 was better than just two other teams, but this jumped to 50 last time out, the ninth most impressive scoring record in the top-flight.
But when assessing the two seasons, there was little difference in the underlying numbers.
