Roberto De Zerbi fires ‘ready’ warning as Crystal Palace suffer last minute injury blow ahead of Brighton

Brighton and Hove Albion boss Roberto De Zerbi has assured the fans that his team will be ready to take all three points when they host sworn rivals Crystal Palace in their re-scheduled game tonight.

The match initially penned down for September 2022 had to be postponed due to the rail strike and the sudden death of Queen Elizabeth II last year.

So much has happened since the game was postponed with Brighton now under the direction of the impressive Italian Roberto De Zerbi.

Surprisingly, despite being one of the best teams in the league this season, they could only pick up a point against the Eagles when they met last month in south London. Brighton have not beaten Palace in their last eight attempts.

But De Zerbi has called on his fans to get behind the team and help them to what will be their first league win over Crystal Palace since 2015.

He said:  “We are ready to play, we want to win to reach Liverpool at 42 points in the table.

“We know the difficulty of the game – we respect Palace. It’s fantastic to play in our stadium, but they know the importance of tomorrow and every game at home.

“The fans are like one player to us – they’re important. We have to be good to put them in the game, playing with courage, with our style and our passion.”

Crystal Palace go into the game this evening having become the first Premier League side to fail to record a shot on target in three consecutive games with manager Patrick Vieira under huge pressure to save his job.