Manchester United vs Crystal Palace

Melbourne Cricket Ground is the venue as Manchester United and Crystal Palace go head-to-head in an all-Premier League pre-season friendly.

Manchester United’s life under new boss Erik ten Hag has got off to a flying start. After an abysmal sixth-place Premier League finish in 2021/22, the ‘Red Devils’ have won both pre-season friendly by an aggregate scoreline of 8-1, including a 4-0 thumping of bitter rivals Liverpool in their opening summer fixture. Man United will now be looking to avenge a narrow 1-0 H2H defeat from the tail-end of last season, their second reverse in four Premier League meetings with Palace (W1, D1). Flying out of the traps could be essential, as none of United’s five previous outings have ended as a draw (W3, L2), four of which witnessed the winner keep a clean sheet.

On the other hand, Patrick Vieira’s understrength Crystal Palace side succumbed to a 2-0 defeat to Liverpool last week. Yet, they have bounced back to beat lower-league opposition Ipswich Town 4-2 in their most recent off-season match-up, making it no draw from their last three warm-up contests (W2, L1). High scoring has been a common theme during that sequence, as two of those games featured both teams on the scoresheet in matches garnering 6+ total goals. By contrast, four of their last five meetings with Man United have seen one or both sides fail to score in fixtures producing under 2.5 goals.