Hoping that the eighth time will be the charm in the 2024-25 Premier League season, winless Crystal Palace take on a Nuno Espirito Santo-less Nottingham Forest at the City Ground on Monday evening.

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Demonstrating their defensive nous at the home of free-scoring Chelsea two weekends ago, Nottingham Forest quelled the threat of Cole Palmer and co for nearly an hour at Stamford Bridge, where a West London upset was on the cards when Chris Wood poked home the opener.

However, the away end's delirium lasted all of eight minutes as Noni Madueke found a gap to level matters for the hosts, who would go on the warpath when James Ward-Prowse was comically sent off for handball, but the 10-man Garibaldi refused to go down waving the white flag.

In the end, goalkeeping duo Robert Sanchez and Matz Sels stole the spotlights in a 105-minute spectacular, one which extended Forest's winless streak in the top division to three matches, although they still have just the one defeat next to their name after seven matches.

Twelfth in the Premier League table after Saturday's results, Monday's fixture will be the first of three that Forest must navigate without Santo in the dugout; the Tricky Trees boss was handed a two-game suspension for his improper conduct against Brighton & Hove Albion, which also triggered a suspended one-match ban.

The Portuguese will watch on helplessly as his Forest side endeavour to snap a dampening seven-match winless run at the City Ground in all tournaments - not since 2012 have they failed to prevail in eight on the spin at home - but only Liverpool (two) have shipped fewer than Forest's six goals at the wrong end thus far.

Speaking of seven-match winless sequences, Palace have endured that exact miserable fate at the start of the 2024-25 season, a far cry from the scintillating Oliver Glasner unit that took 19 points from their last seven matches of the 2023-24 campaign.

Two straight losses to two Merseyside outfits depleted morale further just before international football intervened, as after succumbing to Dwight McNeil's mastery in a 2-1 loss to Everton, Palace were conquered by Liverpool on October 5 courtesy of Diogo Jota's effort.

That result left the Eagles below the dotted line in 18th spot, and even though 10 goals conceded represents the best defensive record inside the bottom six, a paltry five strikes is currently the worst attacking record in the top flight.

However, three of those efforts have come on the road, where Palace are on a six-game scoring streak in the Premier League since a 1-0 loss to Bournemouth at the beginning of April, but not since the 1992-93 season - when they finished 20th and were relegated - have they failed to win any of their first eight matches of a league campaign.

Furthermore, the Eagles faithful have to go back to December 2011 for their side's most recent triumph over Forest - where Glenn Murray struck the only goal of the game - and the Tricky Trees have since gone unbeaten in seven consecutive head-to-heads, although five of those have ended level.

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