English Premier League picks, predictions, and odds

It’s really hard to judge what type of team Crystal Palace will be this season. That may sound strange since we’re now three months in the 2022-23 Premier League campaign, but it’s hard to figure out a team that beat projections last season but has underwhelmed out of the gates this year because of an absolutely brutal schedule. With Newcastle’s emergence, the Premier League now has a “Big Seven” rather than a “Big Six” and Palace has played five of the “Big Seven” through it’s first nine games. 

That kind of schedule will skew a team’s record, statistical data and its perception in the betting market. That could be why we’re seeing Palace as just a +120 home favorite against Wolverhampton Wanderers, who currently sit in 17th place with nine points and a -8 goal differential through 10 matches.

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Palace’s record isn’t much better; the Eagles are 2-4-3 (W-D-L) and sport a -2 goal differential through nine matches. 

Wolves vs. Crystal Palace pick: Crystal Palace +120 (BetMGM)

What could be cooling the market down more than Palace’s tangible Win-Loss record is that its underlying metrics do not stack up to where they were last season when the Eagles finished with the sixth-best xG differential and conceded the fifth-fewest expected goals throughout the entire campaign. Through nine matches in 2022-23, Palace rank 16th in both of those categories. 

But when you look at how Palace performed against teams outside of the Big Seven, the numbers become much more encouraging. The Eagles have a +1.3 expected goal differential in their four matches against Brentford, Aston Villa, Leeds, and Leicester and allowed an average of 1.07 xG per match. The Eagles are coming off back-to-back solid defensive performances against Leeds and Leicester, in which they allowed just one goal and held their opponents to just 1.8 xG combined. 

And even if the Palace defense was trending down, Wolves aren’t the team that will make them pay. Entering the midweek matches, Wolverhampton has scored just four goals in 10 games, which is three fewer than the second-worst mark in the Premier League (Nottingham Forest, Aston Villa). While there should be some offensive regression coming for Wolverhampton based on its 9.2 expected goals created, that is still the third-worst mark in the Premier League and this is a team that regularly underperforms its expected goals because it lacks finishing talent.

Looking back to Palace’s last home match, you can see that the Eagles closed as a +105 favorite against Leeds United. The Peacocks are a stronger team than Wolves, so it makes little cents that you can get Palace for +120 against Wolverhampton on Tuesday.