Gary O’Neil says the Blues go to Selhurst Park on Saturday full of confidence, and he wants them to leave with six points. Ipswich Town meet Crystal Palace with both clubs locked on the same record after three Premier League games, which gives this Palace Vs Ipswich Town meeting a rare edge for an early-season fixture.
The numbers are identical in the league table. Both sides have won one and lost two, and they have matched each other for goals scored, goals conceded and goal difference. Crystal Palace sit 13th only because alphabetical order puts them above Town, not because there is much between the teams on the pitch.
That narrow gap is why O’Neil has framed the trip as a proper test rather than a routine away day. Town beat Sunderland 2-1 at home in their opening game, then lost at Manchester United and at Liverpool at Portman Road. Palace opened with a 2-0 defeat at Everton, were beaten 4-1 at home by Manchester City, and then showed more life last weekend by coming from behind twice to win 3-2 at Fulham.
For Palace, the game is also another check on how far Pierre Sage has moved them on since replacing Oliver Glasner at the end of last season. O’Neil said Sage is trying to get his team into the same shape and the same positions he saw at Lens, and he added that Palace already carry some of the same feel as the side Glasner built. That matters because it points to a team in transition, still learning the habits that make a manager’s plan automatic.
O’Neil knows the pattern well enough to recognise the delay. He said he has been through this before, against managers whose ideas were still settling, and he pointed to the 1-1 draw between his Strasbourg side and Sage’s Lens in March as part of that picture. His view is simple: new systems take time, even when the quality is there, and Palace are no different.
There is, though, a detail that sits awkwardly beside the confidence. O’Neil has not beaten Palace in five managerial games against them. He said he lost four and drew one across those meetings with Bournemouth and Wolves, which gives Saturday’s visit a sharper edge than the table alone suggests. Town may feel ready to compete, but the manager facing them has spent enough time against Palace to know how unforgiving they can be.
That is why the match feels like more than an early-season checkpoint. Town are chasing their first away win in the Premier League, Palace are trying to prove their latest rebuild is moving fast enough, and both arrive with the same record but different questions hanging over them. O’Neil has already set the target: perform the way his side want to be seen and come home with six points. The only way that becomes more than a line is if Town turn Saturday evening into a result that changes the shape of both starts.
