Who To Pick From Crystal Palace

Drafting from Crystal Palace

Nine of Crystal Palace's 32 players are English and no other nation on their books gets more than two. That lopsided passport count is the thing to build a spin around, because on raw numbers Palace are unremarkable: a power rating of 80 for twelfth, a spread of four, and exactly one man rated 82 or above.

That man is Adam Wharton, an 82-rated central midfielder, and here the obvious pick and the clever pick are the same object. Wharton feeds the only chemistry lane Palace can properly stock, and he is the one player at the club who lifts your XI on rating alone. He also happens to occupy the department Palace are worst at, six central midfielders averaging 73, and that is the argument rather than an objection: there is nothing behind him, so the wheel will not offer you a second bite. Dean Henderson at 80 is the other English name in the top five, but a goalkeeper at that level turns up on half the clubs in the game. Take the midfielder.

What you forgo is the forward line, and it is the genuinely unusual asset here: two strikers at 81, Jean-Philippe Mateta and Evann Guessand. Centre-forward is where squads in this range go to die, so if your side already has a controller and a hole at nine, invert all of the above and take Mateta, or Guessand if the Ivory Coast link is the one your XI is leaning towards. Right back is listed as Palace's strength at 80, but that is Daniel Muñoz and nobody else, a department of one, and no reason to spend your only visit. One last note for anyone drafting with legends in play: Wilfried Zaha sits on Palace's legends card at 93 on the left wing, eleven clear of anything in the current squad, and he is the only Palace name on either board rated above 90.