MATCH UPDATED PREVIEW: ‘New’ kick-off time for Ipswich Town vs. Crystal Palace, prediction, team news, lineups – Details.

Separated only by goal difference in the lower echelons of the Premier League table,

Ipswich Town and Crystal Palace clash in a crucial bottom-half battle at Portman Road on Tuesday evening.

The Tractor Boys’ unbeaten streak was snapped in a 1-0 reverse at Nottingham Forest on Saturday,

while the Eagles were seemingly consigned to the same fate against Newcastle United before dramatically rescuing a point from a 1-1 draw.

The battle for attacking supremacy between Forest’s Chris Wood and

Ipswich’s Liam Delap promised to be an intriguing one before Saturday’s City Ground encounter,

although both sets of supporters may have felt unfulfilled after a disappointing goalless first half.

However, with just four minutes gone after the restart, Sammie Szmodics felled Jota Silva in the box,

and Wood paid homage to the old-style of penalties with a thunderous effort down the

middle to settle a closely-contested battle, one in which Kieran McKenna’s men were far

from outplayed but lacked that killer instinct in the final third.

Defeat on Forest’s turf represented a rude awakening for Ipswich following their applaudable

three-game unbeaten sequence against Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United and Leicester City,

and they have slipped back down to 19th place in the standings as a result.

The fruitless quest for a maiden Premier League home win of the season now continues for

McKenna’s team, who are the only side in the English top-flight still waiting for a first victory on

familiar territory, where they have played out four draws in their last five games.

Should Tuesday’s hosts fail to shut up shop in the midweek affair, it will also represent their

10th straight Premier League game without a clean sheet, having not kept an opponent at bay

since their goalless stalemate against Brighton & Hove Albion in the middle of September.

Not just one, but two tales of defensive redemption were written at Palace’s Selhurst Park

base on Saturday afternoon, where Daniel Munoz entered his nomination for the

Premier League’s worst miss of the season before Marc Guehi turned Anthony Gordon’s cross into his own net.

However, with four of the five minutes of second-half stoppage time played,

the same combination linked up for a bedlam-triggering Eagles equaliser,

as Guehi’s floated delivery to the back stick was on the money for Munoz to head home at Nick Pope’s near post.

The Colombian’s aerial excellence not only snatched a draw from the jaws of defeat,

but also propelled Oliver Glasner’s troops out of the demotion zone and into

17th place in the table, albeit only thanks to a superior goal difference over Ipswich and Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Only one of Palace’s last six games has ended in defeat as Glasner’s men

seek to kickstart a winter revival, and the Eagles have recently discovered a

knack for netting on the road, scoring twice in each of their last three away matches across all competitions.

A first clean sheet of the season on rival turf is still eluding the visitors,

but Palace did come out on top in their most recent showdown with Ipswich,

a 2017-18 EFL Cup second-round contest in which James McArthur scored both Eagles goals in a 2-1 win.