Premier League 
Crystal Palace make the journey to Old Trafford this Saturday where three points for Manchester United would help bridge the gap between them and fifth-place Tottenham. The Eagles have had mixed form recently, and United come into the clash off of a loss in the league, meaning both sides are looking to start February with a win.
United had a relatively quiet January transfer window, leaving most of their business until deadline day, mostly enquiring about Marcel Sabitzer of Bayern Munich in order to replace Christian Eriksen who has been ruled out until at least April. However, the form in which United have been in suggests that not many changes needed to be made.
In their last five Premier League games, Erik Ten Hag’s side have three wins, a draw and a loss. A clutch showing from Marcus Rashford to win 1 - 0 against Wolves, a dominant 3 - 0 thrashing of Bournemouth and a 2 - 1 derby day win over Manchester City. Their one draw, a 1 - 1 draw, came against this weekend’s opponents and their loss came against top-of-the-league Arsenal, a 3 - 2 thriller. Through this all, United have progressed to the Fifth Round of the FA Cup after a 3 - 1 win over Reading and have a 3 - 0 aggregate lead over Nottingham Forest in the Carabao Cup Semi-final.
Crystal Palace have also had a quiet winter transfer window, with their most notable pieces of business being inquiries into Naouirou Ahamada from VfB Stuttgart and the departure of first-team coach Shaun Derry. Though The Eagles have a relatively strong squad, they did have their sights on strengthening with the likes of Conor Gallagher or Sambi Lokonga.
The past five Premier League games have been a mixed bag for Crystal Palace with their only win being a 2 - 0 win over Bournemouth. Then they suffered back-to-back defeats, a 4 - 0 loss to Tottenham and a 1 - 0 loss to Chelsea. Coming into this game The Eagles have had two draws against top-four teams, a 1 - 1 draw against United and a 0 - 0 draw with Newcastle. Between it all, Palace dropped out of the FA Cup after a 2 - 1 loss to Southampton in the Third Round.
Manchester United and Crystal Palace have met 62 times in their histories, with United dominating the fixture. United have won 39 of the encounters with 13 being draws and Palace winning just ten. It has been more even in the last five meetings, with two draws, two wins for United and one win for Palace.
Players to watch in both of these teams include Casemiro and Michael Olise. Casemiro has fit right in since joining United and is coming into this game off the back of a brace against Reading in the FA Cup.
Olise will also be looking to make the scoresheet like he did in the reverse fixture. In that game, the youngster hit his second of the season, a blinder of a goal but gave a very muted celebration.
