Tottenham v Crystal Palace: De Zerbi chases a third straight win against the coach who studied him
Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Saturday 31 October, 18:30 CET. Spurs have won their last two, including at Chelsea; Palace are 17th, lost 5-0 at Brighton this month, and their coach Pierre Sage calls De Zerbi his model.
Tottenham host Crystal Palace at 18:30 CET on Saturday 31 October, the last of the day’s Premier League games in London. It is a game between two sides low in the table and two coaches with a connection: Palace’s Pierre Sage once travelled to Italy to study the way Roberto De Zerbi’s teams play.
Why it matters
Spurs are 14th with 9 points from eight games: two wins, three draws, three defeats. That looks poor, but the two wins are the last two games, and Sky Sports noted on Thursday that Spurs have not won three league games in a row for 616 days, a run that outlasted three managers. The second of those wins was 2-0 at Chelsea with a clean sheet, Tottenham’s first league win at Stamford Bridge since April 2018. De Zerbi, who took the job in March, said after it: “I think we have suffered enough.”
The numbers behind the two wins are in the Sky Sports piece and are worth a moment. Over their last three league games Spurs ran 3.7 kilometres more per game and made 12 more sprints than in their first five, and their conversion rate, the share of shots that end as goals, went from 2.8% to 14%. In plain terms, the same players are working harder and finishing better. Since James Maddison returned, only Arsenal have taken more league points than Tottenham.
Palace are 17th on 7 points, one place and one point above the relegation zone, the bottom three places that send a club down. Their goal difference, goals scored minus goals conceded, is minus 10, the worst of the six London clubs in the division. A 5-0 defeat at Brighton this month is the main reason. They did win at Fulham in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday, their first win in five games, and Sage said on Thursday that the hard start was “an opportunity for me to become a better coach.”
Then there is the Sage and De Zerbi thread. Sage told Sky Sports that De Zerbi “was a model for a long time” and that he had visited Sassuolo, where De Zerbi coached earlier in his career, to understand how his teams play. Saturday is the student against the teacher, with the teacher’s side on the better run.
The week around the game
| Date | Fixture | Competition | Kick-off (CET) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sat 31 Oct | Tottenham v Crystal Palace | Premier League | 18:30 |
| Thu 5 Nov | Crystal Palace v Hoffenheim | Europa League, matchday 4 | 18:45 |
| Sat 7 Nov | Leeds v Tottenham | Premier League | 13:30 |
| Sun 8 Nov | Crystal Palace v Liverpool | Premier League | 15:00 |
Times come from the official Premier League and UEFA fixture lists and can still change. After 8 November the league breaks for internationals.
Team news
No confirmed team news as of 18:40 CET on Friday. The official teams are due at 17:15 CET on Saturday, 75 minutes before kick-off.
What is known comes from the Premier League’s own availability notes, which the league updates during the week. For Spurs, Rodrigo Bentancur is suspended until 7 November, so he misses this game. Xavi Simons, Destiny Udogie, Wilson Odobert and Mykhailo Mudryk are listed as out with no return date; Sávio is out with a muscle injury until around 21 November. Lucas Bergvall’s knee injury has an expected return of 31 October, which is match day, so he is possible but not certain. Tosin Adarabioyo (calf) and Maddison are both listed as 75% doubts. Sky Sports noted that keeping Maddison fit is the thing that matters most to Spurs’ recent form.
For Palace, Ismaïla Sarr (groin) and Takehiro Tomiyasu (calf) are listed as out until around 8 November, and Chadi Riad (knee) has no return date. Jørgen Strand Larsen (ankle) and Quinten Timber (hamstring) are 75% doubts. Neither club had published a pre-match press conference that we could reach at the time of writing.
How to read the market
BettingBeast’s prices, captured at 13:54 CET on Friday, had Tottenham at 1.64 to win, the draw at 4.55 and Palace at 5.70. Decimal odds show how much you get back for every unit staked, including the stake, so 1.64 means a return of 0.64 on top of each 1 risked. As rough probabilities, that is about 61% for a Spurs win, 22% for a draw and 18% for Palace. They add up to slightly more than a whole because the platform’s margin is inside the numbers.
That is a short home price for a side 14th in the table, and it tells you what the market thinks of the last two weeks: it is pricing the De Zerbi team of the Chelsea game, not the one from August and September. Palace at 5.70 is a longer away price than Manchester United’s at Chelsea on Saturday lunchtime, which says how little the market trusts a team that conceded five at Brighton.
What to watch
Whether Spurs keep running. The Sky Sports numbers say the turnaround is physical first and technical second, and a third week of the same intensity is the test. For Palace, the second half at Fulham was better than the first by Sage’s own account, and whether that carries into a game against a team that presses the way he admires will tell you something about where his side is.
Our lean, phrased as a possibility and not a forecast: Palace’s defensive numbers and Spurs’ form make a home win the likelier result, which is what the price says too; the more open question is whether Palace score at all, given Sarr is out. That is a lean. It is not a prediction, and nothing about Saturday is settled.
18+. Gambling involves risk and can be addictive. Please gamble responsibly. Prices quoted were correct at the time stated and move. This article is information and opinion, not advice; no outcome is certain. Odds links go to BettingBeast. Help: Gambling Therapy.
- Tottenham vs Crystal Palace: Have Spurs genuinely turned a corner in the Premier League under Roberto De Zerbi?, Sky Sports. Read 18:42 CET, 30 Oct 2026.
- Crystal Palace: Pierre Sage on finding solutions, visiting Roberto De Zerbi and building foundations for future success, Sky Sports. Read 18:45 CET, 30 Oct 2026.
- All 380 fixtures for the 2026/27 Premier League season, Premier League. Read 17:20 CET, 30 Oct 2026.
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