Perhaps somewhere in a parallel universe Watford are hoping to be the Premier League’s surprise package whilst Crystal Palace are slowly but surely proving they are more than just top flight cannon fodder?

It is a point worth making that things could have been ever so different for the Eagles had Marco Cassetti not stuck out a weary leg and sent Wilfried Zaha tumbling to the Wembley turf in the 2013 Championship Play-Off Final.

Former Hornet Kevin Phillips converted the resulting penalty and it was Ian Holloway's men, rather than Gianfranco Zola's side, who won promotion.

It matters little, of course.

Palace, now under the tutelage of Alan Pardew, are in their third season as a top flight club whilst Watford have finally caught up with the south London side, just over two years after they met as unlikely promotion contenders at the national stadium.

Year by year Palace have grown and now in their first full season under Pardew find themselves touted as one of the Premier League’s potential surprise packages.

Certainly their start suggests they can bother the upper echelons of the table with three wins from an extraordinarily tough first six games seeing them in tenth on Saturday evening.

The stand out result was, of course, a 2-1 win at Premier League champions Chelsea last month. Bakary Sako and Joel Ward scored either side of Radamel Falcao’s goal to give the south Londoners a famous win at Stamford Bridge and confirm they will be a threat this term.

Watford Observer:

Narrow defeats by Manchester City, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur suggest there is no reason why Pardew’s side cannot look to build on last season’s best ever top flight finish of tenth.

Offered an escape route out of Newcastle United last season, Pardew returned to Selhurst Park at the beginning of 2015 having turned out for the club during his playing days with distinction.

Replacing the sacked Neil Warnock, the former Reading, West Ham United, Charlton Athletic and Southampton boss immediately lifted the club. Having taken up the reins with the side in 18th he eventually steered the Eagles to the midway point of the Premier League.

A run of ten wins from 19 games – which included the scalps of Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester City and Liverpool – more than justified the board’s choice of boss.

Pardew used the January transfer window to recruit carefully, picking up former Watford loanee Jordon Mutch from Queens Park Rangers, completing the permanent return of Manchester United wideman Zaha and bringing in Lille left-back Pape Souare.

Watford Observer:

It was a case of fine-tuning rather than wholesale change again during the summer transfer window with his former Newcastle charge, Yohan Cabaye, the club’s highest profile signing by some distance.

Brough to Selhurst Park from French champions Paris St-Germain for £10 million, Cabaye – a full France international – was reunited with the man who helped him earn a £19 million switch from St James’ Park to PSG in January 2014.

Cabaye, who has thrice won Ligue 1 with Lille and PSG, has made an encouraging start to life in the capital and marked his debut with a goal against Norwich City in a 3-1 opening day win at Carrow Road.

Usually employed in a deep-lying playmaker role in Pardew’s preferred 4-2-3-1 system, the 29-year-old is just one of a handful of threats from midfield.

Wingers Jason Puncheon, Yannick Bolasie, Sako and Zaha have all shown a great deal of versatility this season in fulfilling different roles in midfield whilst Bolasie – reportedly a target for Spurs during the summer – has even led the line as a striker.

The trio combine pace, graft and guile to great effect and have been at the centre of Palace’s excellent form in 2015 which has seen them lose just ten of 25 Premier League fixtures.

Watford Observer:

Particularly impressive is the form of former Wolverhampton Wanderers winger Sako. Picked up on a free transfer after his contract with the Midlands side expired, the 27-year-old Malian has four in two league starts already.

Prolific for a wide player at Wolves, where he notched 36 from 111 starts, the Parisian moved to England for a paltry £2.2 million from St Etienne in 2012 and stuck with Wolves throughout their slide into League One before getting his move to the top table of English football this summer.

Much like the club itself, Sako has simply not looked back.

Crystal Palace XI v Tottenham Hotspur (20.9.15): McCarthy; Kelly, Hangeland, Delaney (c), Souare, Cabaye, McArthur; Sako, Puncheon, Zaha; Bolasie.