Can Mikel
Arteta’s side take another step towards silverware? We look ahead
to Tuesday’s EFL Cup quarter-final clash with our Arsenal vs
Crystal Palace prediction and
preview.
Arsenal
vs Crystal Palace: The Key Stats
- Arsenal overcame Crystal Palace inside 90 minutes across 70.5%
of pre-match simulations by the Opta supercomputer. - Palace have lost seven of their last eight meetings in all
competitions against Arsenal. - No player has scored more goals in the EFL Cup than Eddie
Nketiah (13) since his competition debut in 2017.
Mikel Arteta will hope for the same result when Arsenal
host Crystal
Palace in a repeat of last season’s EFL Cup quarter-final at
the Emirates Stadium.
Gabriel
Jesus’ hat-trick saw Arteta’s side get past Palace with a 3-2
win in 2024-25, and they meet again in the last eight of the
2025-26 edition.
Arsenal’s route to this stage has been fairly simple, sweeping
aside League One’s Port Vale before a routine home victory over
Brighton & Hove Albion in the fourth round. Palace beat rivals
Millwall on penalties before an impressive 3-0 win over an
admittedly much-changed Liverpool at Anfield.
Having overcome the Premier League champions in the last round,
Palace could become only the second team to eliminate both of the
previous season’s top two in a single League Cup campaign. West Ham
United are the only other side to do so, beating Manchester City
and Manchester United in 2021-22.
Oliver Glasner’s men are no strangers to cup success either,
having beaten Man City in the FA Cup final last term. They are now
preparing to feature in back-to-back EFL Cup quarter-finals for the
first time since the 1991-92 and 1992-93 campaigns.
Arsenal will also be looking to win consecutive games against
fellow Premier League sides in the competition for the first time
since the 2010-11 campaign. They beat Tottenham, Newcastle United
and Wigan Athletic in that edition.
The Gunners have triumphed at this stage in their last two
attempts, including last season’s victory over Palace. They have
had a player score a hat-trick in both those victories – Jesus last
season and Eddie
Nketiah against Sunderland in 2021-22.
And Arteta may have to watch out for one of those hat-trick
heroes coming back to haunt him. Nketiah, who swapped Arsenal for
Palace in 2024, has scored more EFL Cup goals (13) than any other
player since his competition debut in October 2017.
But Arsenal have another Hale End academy product to call upon.
Ethan
Nwaneri has scored four goals in five starts in this
competition. Since the start of last season, only Diego Gómez and
Cody Gakpo (5 each) have scored more than the 18-year-old.
Arsenal head into this quarter-final on the back of
a 1-0 victory away to Everton on Saturday night. Viktor
Gyökeres‘ penalty proved the difference on Merseyside, meaning
Arsenal will spend Christmas two points clear of Man City at the
Premier League summit.
There was no such festive joy for Palace, who were hammered 4-1
by Leeds United at Elland Road. A late Justin
Devenny penalty proved a mere consolation in one of Palace’s
worst performances of the season. It was surely a factor, though,
that due to the difficulty in finding a place for this game in the
fixture schedule, the Eagles had to face Leeds just 48 hours after
playing their final league-phase game in the Conference League
against KuPS.
Ismaïla Sarr missed the Leeds defeat as he jetted off to the
African Cup of Nations, while Daniel Muñoz and Daichi Kamada are
other headline absentees for Glasner’s threadbare squad.
Arteta will again be without Kai Havertz and Gabriel Magalhães,
though the pair could return before the year ends. Ben White and
Cristhian Mosquera are expected to be a week further behind in
their respective recoveries.
Arsenal vs Crystal Palace
Head-to-Head
Arsenal may be confident heading into this one, given they have
won seven of their last eight meetings with Palace in all
competitions (D1).
They have already beaten Glasner’s side this season, too, with
Eberechi
Eze scoring against his former club in a 1-0 victory in the
Premier League at the Emirates in October.
Though Palace eliminated Arsenal in the 1970-71 competition,
they have lost their last three EFL Cup meetings (both legs of the
1992-93 semi-final, last season’s quarter-final).
Arsenal vs Crystal Palace
Prediction
Arsenal progressed to the semi-finals with victory in 90 minutes
across a massive 70.5% of 10,000 pre-match simulations by the
Opta
supercomputer.
Palace were afforded just a 13.7% chance of winning in normal
time, with the draw – which would result in a penalty shoot-out –
given a 17.4% likelihood.
Opta
Power Rankings
The
Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They
assign an ability score to over 15,000 domestic football teams.
This score is on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the
worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the
world.
Ahead of kick-off at the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday night, here
is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
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