Nottingham Forest vs Crystal Palace Prediction, Odds and Betting Tips: Trevoh Chalobah a tempting price at the City Ground

Monday night football returns this week and brings with it an intriguing clash between a Nottingham Forest side sat comfortably in mid-table and a team in Crystal Palace whose manager Oliver Glasner is coming under increasing pressure due to their poor start to the season.

Oli Nixon has previewed the Premier League game and picked out his best bets.

Palace are still searching for their first victory of the season and having ended last season with six wins in their last seven games, Eagles fans will be wondering where it’s all gone wrong.

A trip to a Forest side who have yet to win on home soil this season may look just the tonic to kickstart their season, Palace’s failure to beat Nottingham Forest in their last eight head-to-heads suggests it may be a tricky journey.

A hallmark of this Nottingham Forest side last season was their fragility from set pieces. The Tricky Trees conceded a whopping 22 goals from such situations – three more than any other Premier League side.  

Whilst that Achilles heel has yet to rear its head this season, it will likely still be an angle of attack for opposition sides as they look to expose this underlying vulnerability.  

Where Palace are concerned, since the departure of Joachim Andersen to Fulham, they’ve been searching for a set piece target to replace his aerial threat. Marc Guehi’s solitary effort resulted in a goal against Everton and Maxence Lacroix’s two efforts have yielded just 0.18xg between them.  

Enter Trevoh Chalobah for his first start against Liverpool last time out. The stocky Englishman managed two shots, one being on a target from a corner and the other a late strike from 25 yards out demonstrating that he’s not afraid to shoot from distance.  

His career average of 0.7 shots per game is evidence enough that he can fill the void left by Andersen and become Palace’s set piece focal point and odds against him having a shot here - 6/5 with bet365 - against a side vulnerable from set pieces feels like a nice bit of value.

If we’re fancying Chalobah for a shot, getting odds of over 10/1 about him having a headed shot on target with Sky Bet - who offer 12/1 - is also a great way to play the volatility of this angle. 

35% of Chalobah’s shots since 2021 have come via his head and with Palace boasting players of the quality of Eze and Adam Wharton from set pieces, you’d fancy that he’ll get opportunities to get his head to some of those in this game. His shots on target for Chelsea last season were all headers and three of his four Premier League goals have also been headers.  

When we have a side as desperate as Palace for three points, they’ll be throwing the kitchen sink at everything and with Glasner’s attacking style of wing backs getting to the byline to cross into the box at every opportunity, that should lead to plenty of corners - we just need big Trev to get his head on one.  

Nottingham Forest vs Crystal Palace Bet Boosts