Bitter rivals Crystal Palace and Brighton & Hove Albion are two thriving clubs with plenty to play for as they clash for the 20th time in the top flight of English football on Saturday.
Palace are in contention for the first major silverware in their history, with an FA Cup semi-final against Aston Villa at Wembley at the end of this month. Eighth-placed Brighton may have lost to Villa in midweek but are still aiming to qualify for UEFA competition for only the second time via a high finish in the Premier League.
We put together The Athletic’s writers covering the pair, Matt Woosnam and Andy Naylor, to discuss a range of topics, including the season so far and the merits of Palace manager Oliver Glasner and Brighton counterpart Fabian Hurzeler, as well as deliver their combined XIs ahead of the game at Selhurst Park.
Their respective seasons and aspirations
Matt Woosnam, Crystal Palace writer: Palace’s season has been strange.
Given how good their run-in was last time — winning six of their final seven matches and drawing the other — there was hope it would be the year they made it into Europe. Then they started it with eight games without a win (including five defeats) and everyone was nervous, bemoaning missed opportunities.
People were worried about relegation, which is kind of the pessimistic Palace way. Yet, since December, they’ve been great.
Andy Naylor, Brighton writer: Brighton were coming off the back of head coach Roberto De Zerbi’s summer departure, so it was hard to know really what to expect. It has been a case of peaks and troughs, and it is still difficult to know what to expect from game to game.
One route to Europe has gone out of the window by losing on penalties at home against Nottingham Forest in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup last weekend. The home loss to Villa on Wednesday was a blow, but there is still a possibility of emulating, or even bettering, Europa League qualification via a sixth-placed finish under De Zerbi two years ago with the top half of the table so congested.
Reaching Europe again was the ambition at the start of the season.
Brighton’s players endure penalty shootout defeat to Forest (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
The managers’ philosophies
Woosnam: Glasner is very thoughtful and an excellent tactician.
He often spoke early in the season about how he didn’t have the chance to work with his players during pre-season, after four deadline-day arrivals at the end of August on top of players arriving back late having been involved in international tournaments over the summer. It was difficult to build that understanding and familiarity. That is probably the most important thing for Glasner.
He sets his teams up to be successful as a unit but, if that does fall down for whatever reason, then you need players to step up with their special moments the way Eberechi Eze has. But Glasner has navigated that difficult period at the start of the season, shown he has “solutions to problems”, as he would say, and it’s going well for him at the moment.
Naylor: It’s interesting, because there are some similarities in approach. Hurzeler has mentioned Glasner and his work at Eintracht Frankfurt when asked about other managers and coaches he admires, having managed in his native Germany himself at St Pauli before getting the Brighton job. He wants selection consistency, too, but a heavy toll of injuries has prevented that. He has not been able to name an unchanged team all season.
De Zerbi set a high bar and I don’t think the fans have warmed to his successor yet to the same extent, but he is getting there by virtue of what he has achieved so far. Too much is made of Hurzeler’s age (31 when he was appointed, 32 now). When things go wrong, it is easy to jump on a naivety bandwagon, but he already has eight years of coaching experience after intentionally ending a playing career that included a spell with Bayern Munich early.
Hurzeler has a big future. He comes across well in news conferences and is very level-headed, never getting too high or too low based on results. His approach is collaborative, which includes a leadership group of experienced players in the dressing room who are consulted.
I think both he and Glasner are doing really good jobs.
Palace celebrate last weekend’s FA Cup quarter-final win at Fulham (Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images)
What will this game mean for both clubs?
Woosnam: I was thinking about this a lot over the weekend and whether Palace and Brighton might end up playing each other at Wembley in the FA Cup. A lot of people were saying, ‘I couldn’t bear to play them, because what if we lose?’. But it would have been brilliant for the rivalry as only once has this match had real jeopardy since the meeting in a Championship play-offs semi-final 12 years ago, and that was an FA Cup third-round tie (in 2018). That jeopardy is really important in a rivalry.
Palace would love to dent Brighton’s European hopes. So that’s more of an incentive for them, but I think everyone’s always up for this game more than any other and that will continue. There are people in the club who really care. It’ll be those people and the fans who know the history and who have an appreciation of how much it matters. The fans really want to see that spikiness.
Naylor: You’re right, Matt. There has not been that much riding on many of the previous 19 top-flight meetings other than bragging rights. But we are in a situation here where Palace are coming off the back of reaching the FA Cup semi-finals, Brighton had those disappointment against Forest and Villa, and Palace could frustrate their European challenge further. So, there is a real sense of a bit more riding on it than perhaps is usually the case.
Hurzeler has quickly become aware of the rivalry. It went wrong for Brighton in the first meeting between the teams this season, when Palace won 3-1 at the Amex. I am sure he does not want to kick off his reign with them completing a home-and-away double.
The fans are still very much into the rivalry, even if from the outside it continues to look a little bit strange (Palace are based in south London, Brighton is over an hour’s drive away on England’s south coast) and perhaps not that authentic.
Hurzeler consoles Julio Enciso after Palace’s win at the Amex in December (Shaun Brooks – CameraSport via Getty Images)
Your combined XIs
Naylor: Matt, is this the bit where you pick 11 Palace players? No way am I having that!
You have to go double Dutch in defence and find room for an Ecuadorian with a big engine, a Cameroonian machine and a Japanese wizard. Not forgetting a formidable Frenchman (with whom Eze could dovetail) and a free-scoring Brazilian.
My combined XI (in Hurzeler’s 4-2-3-1): Bart Verbruggen (Brighton); Daniel Munoz (Palace), Jan Paul van Hecke (Brighton), Marc Guehi (Palace), Pervis Estupinan (Brighton); Carlos Baleba (Brighton), Adam Wharton (Palace); Eze, Georginio Rutter (Brighton), Kaoru Mitoma (Brighton); Joao Pedro (Brighton).
Woosnam: Sorry, Andy. You knew I was never going to select a Brighton player… I wouldn’t be able to live it down.
My ‘combined’ XI (in Glasner’s 3-4-2-1): Dean Henderson (Palace); Chris Richards (Palace), Guehi, Maxence Lacroix (Palace); Munoz, Will Hughes (Palace), Wharton, Tyrick Mitchell (Palace); Ismaila Sarr (Palace), Eze; Jean-Philippe Mateta (Palace).
Why can’t Palace beat Brighton at Selhurst?
Naylor: Is that really the case? When I think of games at Selhurst Park, my mind goes back to the 5-0, for example (a Palace win in 2002 when both clubs were in what is now the Championship). A horrendous afternoon. I remember Anthony Knockaert scoring in a 2-1 win (in 2019), but I wasn’t that aware that Palace have such a bad record at home to Brighton. Have they? There have probably been a few draws in there, a few 1-1 draws, I suspect.
Woosnam: I think I deliberately cast it out of my mind… the last five meetings at Selhurst Park have been 1-1 draws, but Palace have, indeed, not beaten Brighton there since (a 3-2 victory in) April 2018.
Brighton’s Knockaert celebrates his winner at Palace in 2019 (Dan Istitene/Getty Images)
Naylor: So, they have only won one of the last six or seven (home and away)? There’s not much to choose between them, really.
Woosnam: Palace’s home record in the Premier League since promotion hasn’t been especially strong, either. So I don’t think it’s unique to Palace vs Brighton. Maybe there’s an expectation there that they should win at home.
Naylor: It’s a bit strange, one of those anomalies. You know what they say, Matt: records are there to be broken. So, Palace are long overdue a victory against Brighton at Selhurst Park. That worries me!
Woosnam: Don’t jinx it, Andy.
Who is having the better season so far?
Woosnam: Obviously, I have to say Palace.
They have a chance of claiming a first major trophy, have broken a club record for successive away victories (six, a sequence which came to an end with the 1-1 draw against Southampton on Wednesday), set an English record for winning by the same scoreline (2-0) in five games in a row away from home and are on their best-ever unbeaten run on their travels.
I will begrudgingly concede Brighton are having another strong season, though.
Naylor: Now, hang on, Matt. Let’s get this right. Palace are still a long way from winning their first major silverware. Villa in the semi-final? It’s a tough one to call, that. And if they do beat them to get back to Wembley again in May, Manchester City or Forest would await.
Let’s talk about the seven-point gap, Matt, the real barometer over the course of a full season. Isn’t that the true reflection?
Woosnam: Didn’t you write about how Brighton were better than Palace in every single way last season, and then Palace finished above Brighton?
Naylor: I can sense some of the pre-match banter coming into play. I think that’s a question that we can only really answer in May, isn’t it? There’s still a lot that can happen for both teams, so I think park this until May when we’ll have a definitive answer.
How might this game be different to previous ones with Zaha gone and Dunk being phased out?
Woosnam: This fixture had those two as villains for so long. If there wasn’t anything to go at, then they made something. There hasn’t been that longevity of players who have played in loads of these games since. It would be nice to have someone reignite that fiery nature.
Naylor: The most authentic homegrown product with Brighton is undoubtedly Jack Hinshelwood, because he’s come through from the age of seven. And, of course, his late grandfather Paul and his great-uncle Martin both played for Palace in the top flight.
Wilfried Zaha’s tussles with Lewis Dunk epitomised the rivalry between the clubs (Christopher Lee/Getty Images)
Woosnam: That was a good penalty from him at the weekend.
Naylor: Hey, come on. Don’t start. I knew you’d bring that up just after I’d written a long piece about his progression at Brighton! It wasn’t the best of penalties, no. But it happens. Look at Erling Haaland against Bournemouth the next day. So, we’ll sweep that aside.
What interests me about associating Wilfried Zaha and Lewis Dunk with these fixtures is proof that both clubs continue to grow. From an outsider’s perspective, I was thinking when Palace lost Zaha and then Michael Olise (in the past two summer transfer windows), that didn’t look great.
Dunk has been such a mainstay, very rarely getting injured, but he has been out of the side quite a bit this season with various ailments and turns 34 this year. It always felt, going back, that if you said Brighton didn’t have him available, it would be a real blow that would really affect their performances and results. That isn’t the case anymore.
They continue to evolve. That doesn’t mean to say he’s not an important figure still, but they’re not as reliant on him as they have been in the past.
Palace’s Paul Hinshelwood, right, slides in against Everton (S&G/PA Images via Getty Images)
Woosnam: It also reflects how the two clubs have changed. They’ve been established in the Premier League for a long time now. The rivalry has changed a bit as the two clubs themselves have throughout their Premier League journeys. That’s just the nature of it. Perhaps missing from this rivalry at the moment is that extra storyline, and that is what hopefully will come out of this game.
Naylor: Perhaps the storyline, Matt, will be that Palace will eventually catch up with Brighton when it comes to recruitment. I say that a bit tongue-in-cheek because, from what I’m seeing, Palace are getting better on that front, aren’t they? Correct me if I’m wrong.
Woosnam: Yeah, but they have just lost Dougie Freedman as sporting director. He was a big part of that, so it will be interesting to see how they evolve as that will be a significant loss. They’ll hope that they can build on the foundations he put in place.
Brighton have known when to sell players at maximum value. Palace have mostly held onto their talented players, which may or may not have worked out. Brighton haven’t made the jump they maybe would have hoped to, though, if you look at the money they’ve made from player sales, and you have to replace those players in the right way. That’s hard.
Naylor: What Brighton do very well is not just finding these players and developing them and making lots of money, but knowing when to sell. Moises Caicedo is a standout example. Of course, you’re going to miss him. You know he’s difficult to replace, but they signed him as a kid from Ecuador for £4million and then sold him for £115m (to Chelsea), having not played that many games.
Whatever way you dress that up, it’s pretty smart business. The difficulty is to keep on doing it. Brighton have lost not just a lot of players but staff and recruitment personnel as well. So, it becomes more and more difficult, especially with increasing aspirations.
But they have the Tony Bloom algorithm, which nobody else has. All the while they have that, they can keep on producing.
(Top photos: Getty Images)
