Crystal Palace are on
the verge of equalling the longest unbeaten run in their history,
but the data suggests things could get even better for
them.
The last few months could scarcely have gone any better for
Crystal
Palace.
After ending last season with an eight-game unbeaten run that
culminated in FA Cup glory, Oliver Glasner’s side have continued
their fine form at the start of 2025-26.
Palace have played nine games this season without suffering
defeat, meaning they have now gone 17 games unbeaten in all
competitions. Avoid a loss to Liverpool
next weekend – the team they beat to the
Community Shield last month – and they will equal the longest
unbeaten run in their history, an 18-game streak that ended in
August 1969.
And on top of winning more silverware at Wembley, there has been
more good news. They came through their UEFA Conference League
qualifier to make the league phase of the competition for their
first ever European campaign, they are into the EFL Cup fourth
round, and they currently sit fifth in the Premier League
table.
As we said, things couldn’t really be going any better.
Or could they?
Opta’s
expected points model suggests Palace actually deserve to be
even further up the league.
Using expected goals data from each match in 2025-26, the model
simulates every game 10,000 times and distributes expected points
based on how often each game is won, drawn and lost in those
simulations.
In other words, the model looks at the quality of chances each
team created in their games and calculates how likely each match
result was based on the quality of those opportunities. While it’s
not an exact science in that it doesn’t consider periods of
attacking pressure that don’t end in a shot (as there’s no xG
value), it is supposed to give a better indication of performance
quality than actual results which, we can all admit, don’t
always reflect how well or badly a team has played.
The underlying data from the first five matchdays of the 2025-26
Premier
League season suggests Palace shouldn’t really be fifth.
Instead, incredibly, they deserve to be top of the league.
Okay, we’re only five games in. Nobody is going to start saying
Palace are in the title race. And even if they were top – which
they aren’t – they probably wouldn’t stay there.
But the fact that they ‘should’ have more points than they do
certainly bodes well. While the underlying data suggests
Liverpool’s perfect record of five wins from five isn’t sustainable
(the model says they should be sixth, with just 8.6 xPts rather
than 15 actual points), Palace’s performances have deserved even
more than the nine points they’ve got. If every team continue to
play at the same standard as they have started the season and pick
up points closer to in line with the quality of their performances,
Palace could rise further up the table.
Looking at the Premier League table over a longer period than
the start of this season, the prospect of Palace rising into the
top four really isn’t all that fanciful. Listing Premier League
teams by their record since the start of 2025, Palace are fourth.
Only Liverpool, Arsenal
and Manchester
City have more than their 42 points in that time.
Much of their success is based on their exceptional defence.
They have conceded only two goals in five games this season, giving
them the league’s joint-best defensive record alongside Arsenal.
Before Jarrod Bowen’s header from a corner for West
Ham on Saturday, Callum Hudson-Odoi had been the only player to
breach Palace’s defence.
Their solidity is built on the back three of Marc
Guéhi, Maxence
Lacroix and Chris
Richards; Palace have kept 11 clean sheets in the 19 Premier
League games that trio have started in a back three together.
They are slightly fortunate to be able to field them all. Guéhi
very nearly left for Liverpool in the summer and would have gone
had he had his own way.
In the end, though, he stayed. And anyway, Glasner’s Palace are
greater than the sum of their parts. They might have won as many
points even if Guéhi had gone.
This isn’t a team of individuals, but a solid, well-oiled and
functional machine that punches above its weight. That’s something
they have proved beyond doubt by continuing to perform this season
after losing one of the most talented players the club has ever had
this summer, with Eberechi
Eze having moved to Arsenal.
Their reactive and direct style of football, based around their
solid defence and quick transitions into the final third, is
proving hugely effective. In an age when teams across the Premier
League appear increasingly happy to play direct football, Palace’s
decision to appoint Glasner, whose teams have always played this
way, as manager in February 2024 has proved prescient.
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This season, only Burnley
and Brentford
have averaged less possession in Premier League games than Palace
(42.4%). Only Burnley have started their open-play passing
sequences closer to their own goal than Palace (39.4 metres away).
Palace’s players have applied significantly fewer pressures in the
final third than any other team, with their total of 388 some 82
lower than anyone else, and they have won possession within 40
metres of the opposition’s goal fewer times (19) than any other
team. They have attacked up the pitch at a faster speed (2.02
metres per second) than every team other than bar Burnley (2.10
m/s).
These stats do a good job of building a picture of the kind of
team Palace are. Sit back, soak up pressure, hit the opposition on
the break, right?
Well, not entirely.
Although Palace press high less than anyone else, they also
don’t drop back into a low block and defend in a compact shape
right in front of their own goal for long periods. They have spent
more time out of possession against opposition build-up in a
mid-block (62%) than any other team, suggesting they aren’t
entirely risk-averse, choosing to leave a little space in behind
their defensive line, thereby reducing the amount of space the
opposition have to operate in.
They also haven’t been very effective with their
counter-attacks, registering just one shot and no goals from fast
breaks. Both are lower than just about every other team in the
Premier League this season. They aren’t a
low-block-and-counter-attack kind of team.
There is, in fact much more to them. They can be much more
controlled and assured in the final third than their possession
numbers initially indicate. They consistently find their way into
dangerous positions by attacking up the pitch at pace, but they
don’t rush things once they get there. They are happy to pause to
take stock before making a sensible decision as to what to do.
Crosses have proved their main route to goal this season, with
all five of their non-penalty Premier League goals having followed
a cross of some sort.
Two of those were at set-pieces, where they have been
particularly effective. Only Arsenal, Everton
and Chelsea
have generated more xG at set-pieces this season than Palace (3.00
xG).
But that is not to say they are reliant on dead balls. They rank
fifth (ahead of all three teams who have more xG at set-pieces than
them) in the Premier League for open-play xG this season, with 4.7.
They are only behind Man City, Man
Utd, Brighton
and Liverpool in this regard, each of whom play a more
possession-based game.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the pitch, their mid-block
defensive approach is working wonders. Through five Premier League
matches, they have conceded chances in open play worth just 1.7 xG.
That’s an average of only 0.3 xG per game.
They do need to improve at defensive set-pieces, having conceded
3.0 xG – the fourth-highest in the league – including Bowen’s goal
at West Ham at the weekend, but that feels like something Glasner
could improve without too much work. It hardly seems like giving up
a few too many chances at set-pieces is something to worry
about.
In fact, there doesn’t seem to be much for Palace to worry about
at all. The Eagles are flying high, and the data suggests they
might soar even higher before long.
They have 59 points from their last 38 Premier League games (the
length of a full season), but having lost the first three games in
that run, they could soon set a club record for any 38-game period
in their Premier League history. That record is held by Alan
Pardew’s Palace in December 2015, at 63 points. If Palace take five
points from games against Liverpool, Everton and Bournemouth,
they’ll break that record.
Jonathan
Manuel / Data Analyst
In three of the past four seasons, 63 points was enough to come
sixth, which would be the highest position Palace had ever finished
in the Premier League era.
Their form at the end of last season and the start of this one
suggests picking up that many points is eminently possible.
This is a formidable and reliable side who have already done
plenty of things that no Crystal Palace team have done before.
There’s every reason to believe they can carry on doing just
that.
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