Champions League
Conference League
Premier League
Published on Dec, 06 2024
Manchester City are back in action on Saturday, away at Crystal Palace as they chase their second straight Premier League win at Selhurst Park. The Eagles are unbeaten in three games after their 1-0 midweek success away at Ipswich Town, while the Citizens stopped the rot which had set in under Pep Guardiola with a 3-0 home win over Nottingham Forest. Seven games without a win with six of those defeats was unprecedented, both for Guardiola and for City, but that tide has now been stemmed.
Oliver Glasner's Palace side can look back at last year's 2-2 draw with Saturday's opponents and the fact that they have only lost once across their last six games to give themselves hopes in the relegation battle. The Austria tactician knows that his team faces a busy festive period, but points will likely need to come from elsewhere given that they have only won two of their last 18 EPL games against City with both of those in Manchester back in 2018 and 2020 respectively.
Bernardo Silva, Kevin De Bruyne and Jeremy Doku secured City's first win since October with just their third clean sheet all term. The alarming collapse against Feyenoord in the UEFA Champions League has had Guardiola and his players on edge, but their confidence can start to grow if they get another win against a team that they have beaten seven times from their last nine EPL away games.
Palace are 17th in the table and just three points above the relegation zone with just one win from seven home games so far despite five towards the end of last season when Glasner took the job. City are fourth in the EPL standings with many writing off their title chances but leaders Liverpool have dropped some points in midweek so the gap to the Reds is now nine points for Guardiola's outfit. The Citizens have lost their last five away games across all competitions and they last lost six straight back in 1994.
Palace: Chadi Riad, Adam Wharton and Matheus Franca are all out injured for this one while Cheick Doucoure is fit to start and will battle Jefferson Lerma and Will Hughes for a space. Daichi Kamada is back after a three-game suspension and could also feature in the middle or in support up top.
Possible Palace XI: Henderson; Chalobah, Lacroix, Guehi; Munoz, Doucoure, Lerma, Mitchell; Eze; Nketiah, Mateta.
City: Nathan Ake is now injured and joins Rodri, Oscar Bobb, Mateo Kovacic and John Stones in missing out. Manuel Akanji will be assessed before the game while Phil Foden is a doubt. Ake and Akanji's absences could see Josko Gvardiol moved centrally alongside Ruben Dias or Jahmai Simpson-Pusey handed a start. Kyle Walker and Rico Lewis should be the full-backs and Guardiola will assess possibly giving De Bruyne a second start of the week alongside Ilkay Gundogan and Jack Grealish. Stefan Ortega could start for a third consecutive outing ahead of Ederson.
Possible City XI: Ortega; Walker, Dias, Gvardiol, Lewis; De Bruyne, Gundogan, Grealish; Savinho, Haaland, Doku.
Palace will try to make life tough for city but the visitors should be able to do enough to win by at least a narrow margin. Pick: Palace 0, City 1.
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