Two teams still trying to find their feet under new managers meet in the Premier League on Saturday, with both still searching for their first points of the new season.
Crystal Palace make the 10-mile hop across London to face Fulham (3pm) with both sides having suffered back-to-back defeats to open up the 2026-27 campaign. For the hosts, manager Alvaro Arbeloa admits pressure – even at this early juncture – is expected but that he can see encouraging signs from their narrow defeats to Chelsea and Sunderland.
“Pressure is part of my job, it’s part of our job, but it doesn’t change anything about the way we have been working,” said the Spaniard. “The most important thing, for me, is that I work every day, try to improve and move on.
“I know we are waiting for the first three points but we know that these first games are not easy games. You can see that we have had a difficult start, but we are very confident in the way we have been working.”
In terms of team news, the Cottagers are to be without midfielder Tom Cairney who is continuing his recovery from minor knee surgery but they will be able to select from their three deadline day arrivals: Hugo Larsson, Manuel Angel and David Affengruber.
However, Arbeloa caveated their availability by stating none would be likely to start against Palace: “Be patient with with these three players – they need to understand what we want from them.”
As for Palace, boss Pierre Sage has an interesting dilemma to navigate after one of his star players missed out on a “dream” move to Liverpool.
Ismaila Sarr needs “time to get over” the collapse of the proposed switch according to his manager.
“Like every bad situation, time does the job. We need time for that, he needs time too. First of all, he needs to recover, because he was and is injured. It doesn’t change, he’s our player and we are happy with that,” Sage said.
“He has to digest [it], for sure. It’s a dream for a lot of players to play for this kind of club. He had a good opportunity, but in the end it didn’t work and he has to do it like this.
“If he wants to continue in the years, he has to give a good season with us, to perform with us and to score a lot of goals, as he did last year. But we know and you know that he needs time.”
Sarr would have been absent anyway for this game as he continues to recover from injury whilst JP Mateta and Chadi Riad are also unavailable for Sage to call upon.
Quizzed on the challenge Fulham will bring, he added: “There’s a lot of new players and coaches on both sides. I’m really happy to play against them because we need a reference game for the moment. We need to come up with the best plan for the team, it’s only a plan. We will try to do it. We tried to do it in our two previous games.”
