Palace v Cardiff City

Selhurst Park, Saturday 3.00pm

Story so far

Cardiff have made an unbelievable start to their Championship campaign. After challenging for a play-off spot for a good part of last season, they've gone one better and are sitting top of the table.

Dave Jones bought in some good players during the summer transer window and has his team playing attractive football.

They are scoring goals for fun and will definately be there or there abouts at the end of the season, so long as they don't have any injuries to key players.

Team news

Eagles boss Peter Taylor expects to have midfield duo Tom Soares and Carl Fletcher back from ankle injuries.

Mark Kennedy hopes to be over a calf problem but Michael Hughes is missing with cartilage damage in his knee.

Palace's internationals Gabor Kiraly, Shefki Kuqi and Clinton Morrison returned from their midweek matches unscathed.

Cardiff defender Kevin McNaughton has a hamstring injury which means James Chambers, who is on loan from Watford, replaces him.

Quotes

Jones on Palace: "They've brought in some good players. They were favourites at the start and they'll be favourites at the end.

"It's another tough test for us. We have to prepare properly, every game is a tough test for us and it becomes tougher the longer you stay at the top because everyone wants to knock you off.

"The expectation levels are up there at Palace, they expect to get promoted along with everyone else and I'm sure they've got the pressures of everyone else that's trying to get out of this division."

Taylor on Cardiff: "They have a very good manager in Dave Jones, they are a good team and in very good form at the moment so they are confident," said Taylor.

"They find themselves at the top of the table as a result of that and I think this is a great game for us. Their team is very well balanced and they have some good players. When I saw them play against Southend recently, they won easily so they will be full of confidence.

"We will give them the respect that they deserve, but we feel we can beat anyone on our day and hopefully that will be the case on Saturday."

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Cardiff City - league stats

Position	Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	Points
1st	10	7	2	1	23

Full league table

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Cardiff City - current form

Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	For	Against
5	3	1	1	15	6

Full form table

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Our home record v Cardiff City

Played	Won	Drawn	Lost	For	Against
25	18	4	3	53	21

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Last five results

Date	Type	Home Team	Score	Away Team
04/02/2006	League	Crystal Palace	1 - 0	Cardiff City
17/09/2005	League	Cardiff City	1 - 0	Crystal Palace
10/04/2004	League	Cardiff City	0 - 2	Crystal Palace
04/10/2003	League	Crystal Palace	2 - 1	Cardiff City
05/09/2000	League Cup	Cardiff City	0 - 0	Crystal Palace

All time results

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One to watch

Michael Chopra

Michael Chopra made his £500,000 move from Newcastle to Cardiff in the summer of 2006.

Chopra is scoring plenty of goals with regular first team action and is beginning to show the potential and hype that was surrounding him at an early age at Newcastle.

He has a good turn of pace and is an excellent finisher. Chopra can drop back into midfield and the right wing to help link up play or to find his own methods of attack. He'll need a tight marker on him to avoid his pace causing our defence problems.

At an early age, Chopra was dubbed the new Alan Shearer. Well I'm not sure about that one, but he's certainly a more than capable replacement for Cameron Jerome [who made a £3m move to Birmingham in the summer].

Interesting Fact: Chopra is the first player of part-Indian descent to score in the Premier League.

Probable line-up

	Morrison	Scowcroft
McAnuff	Kennedy	Watson	Soares
Borrowdale	Ward	Cort	Lawrence
Kiraly

Ref watch

Peter Walton Northamptonshire

Saturday's game will be Peter Walton's tenth of the season and his first visit to Selhurst since taking charge of our 4-1 demolition job of Norwich in February of last term.

A reasonably easy-going ref, Walton's only issued 21 yellow cards in his previous nine matches going into Saturday and has only had to send someone for an early bath once.

Last meeting

Palace 1-0 Cardiff City

Saturday February 04 2006

Palace: Kiraly, Ward, Boyce, Fitz Hall (sent off 82), Hughes, Riihilahti, Leigertwood, McAnuff (Borrowdale, 83), Reich (Watson, 86), Johnson (Morrison, 89), Freedman

Subs not used: Macken, Speroni

Sent Off: Hall(82)

Goals: Riihilahti 70

Cardiff City: Alexander, Barker (Darlington, 89), Purse, Cox, Scimeca, Ardley, Koumas, Boland (Ndumbu-Nsungu, 83), Ledley, Cooper, Jerome

Subs not used: Whitley, Thompson, Margetson

Bookings: Koumas

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