SlipsTips Tips: Chelsea vs Crystal Palace

After delivering yet another winner in his featured column on Boxing Day, SlipsTips is back with two selections for Chelsea's clash with Crystal Palace on Wednesday.

Chelsea vs Crystal Palace (Wednesday, 19:30)

Chelsea will be looking to give the Stamford Bridge faithful some much-needed festive cheer when they come against Crystal Palace on Wednesday night.

The big-spending Blues have lurched from one poor performance to the another this season, the most recent of which was a 2-1 loss at Wolves, on an afternoon where followers of this column cashed in.

As for Crystal Palace, they followed up their dramatic 2-2 at Man City by holding rivals Brighton to a 1-1 draw at Selhurst Park last midweek.

Given the volatile nature of their season so far, Chelsea make little appeal here at general 3/4 quotes so I’m going to once again opt for a player-based selection.

Crystal Palace defender Nathaniel Clyne can be backed at 11/10 with Bet 365 to commit just one foul during this all-London affair and that looks too big to ignore.

Admittedly, the Eagles right-back is not exactly renowned for being hatchet-man, but he should be operating in the same vicinity as Chelsea foul magnet Mykhailo Mudryk who is expected to start here given that both Cole Palmer and Raheem Sterling are suspended

Although the Ukrainian winger has failed to live up to expectations at Chelsea thus far, he can be a tricky customer and that is evidenced by the fact he has drawn a combined total of eight fouls from the opposing outfit across his last four top-flight starts.

Granted, Palace right-back Clyne has a low foul per-game average in the Premier League this season, but he has only started four matches this term to date and has committed a foul in two of those.

Therefore, with all things considered, backing Crystal Palace's seasoned campaigner to commit just one foul on Wednesday night looks worth getting on board with at 11/10 with Bet 365.

Given the jump in price coupled with Roy Hodgson's pragmatism, I’m also prepared to have a small play on Clyne to commit a minimum of two fouls at an attractive looking 9/2 (Bet 365).