Key events
52 min: Savinho skins Canvot with a lovely bit of skill before Mitchell comes crashing late into City’s Brazilian. Yellow card for Palace’s left wing-back.
49 min: It’s true that Palace should be wary of sleepwalking their way through the rest of the Premier League season. They can’t seriously expect to turn it on in the Conference League final if they spend the next two-and-a-half matches getting battered. Not only will Palace need to retain some sort of form, many of their players will also be sweating over their World Cup places.
47 min: “I’m having a hard time figuring out which is the case: Is the City attack brilliant?” asks Kári Tulinius. “If so, why has Pep persisted with a worse front three all season. Or is the Palace defence just awful? Then maybe the Oberbürgmeister of Freiburg should start drawing up the parade route.”
Peeeeeeep!
We are underway again at the sodden Etihad Stadium.
Meanwhile, in Scotland …
This is the live Premier League table. City will be two points shy of Arsenal with an identical goal difference if it finishes 2-0 here.
Half-time reading:
Half-time: Manchester City 2-0 Crystal Palace
This is the first time that Foden has provided two assists in the same Premier League game since December 2023.
45 min: One minute added on. It’s worth flagging that with those two goals, City are now level on goal difference with Arsenal.
Amazing save from Henderson to deny Gvardiol!
44 min: City so nearly add a third. Once again, it is Foden at the heart of things, crossing for Gvardiol. The Croatian rises at the far post, nods back across goal powerfully. It looks a certain goal before Henderson springs to this right and somehow palms it wide! Remarkable save! Gvardiol was wheeling away.
42 min: Foden is purring, there is a real spring in his step now. Amazing what a bit of confidence can do.
“Wrong way on the prayer wheel, Charles, the other way, the other way,” quips Justin Kavanagh, “and don’t set the house on fire with those candles.”
GOAL! Manchester City 2-0 Crystal Palace (Marmoush 40)
Another Foden assist! Aït-Nouri lofts a ball over the top to Foden, who checks his mirrors and hooks a first-time pass square to Marmoush. The Egyptian lets the ball run across his body before swivelling and finishing past Henderson and the retreating Palace bodies on the line!
37 min: As kits go, neither the home City shirt (with the sash) nor this gold away number from Palace is one for the ages.
35 min: “Well that’s jinxed it – thanks Michael,” writes Charles Antaki of my comments on a lack of City invention before their goal. “Arsenal fans have it tough enough. I’m going to have to add another dozen candles to the altar and give the prayer wheel an extra energetic spin if the fates are to be rebalanced.”
33 min: You have to say that was a sublime assist from Foden. He has been woefully short of his best in recent months but the way he saw that opening and executed it with that neat back-heel was brilliant. That will not have been lost on Thomas Tuchel.
GOAL! Manchester City 1-0 Crystal Palace (Semenyo 31)
City finally show some invention as Foden impudent backheel unlocks Palace’s defence. Semenyo is onto the through ball in a flash and finishes beautifully to find the far corner. Semenyo took it early, which completely wrong-footed Henderson in the Palace goal. A lovely goal! That’s what happens when you take risks in the final third.
28 min: He’s no Mahrez on that right wing for City, but Savinho is still one of the best dribblers in the Premier League. Take on Mitchell, man! What’s the worst that could happen?!
26 min: City move the ball into wide areas, then recycle it back centrally, them switch the play to the other flank and repeat. Eeeeeesh, this is turgid stuff.
23 min: Mikel Arteta and anyone associated with Arsenal will be watching this (or reading this?) with encouragement. City have been very poor, despite having 80% possession.
21 min: It’s bucketing it down in Manchester. Bernardo Silva will miss this.
19 min: Just as I write that, City create their first real chance! It’s a clumsy City move, but ultimately an effective one as Aït-Nouri plays a one-two with Foden and bundles his way past Muñoz before dragging a shot wide of the near post with his weaker right foot.
17 min: Lots of possession and probing from City. Not a lot of incision. This very much looks like a rusty attacking unit missing the invention of Doku and Cherki.
15 min: Guéhi is yet to taste defeat in a City shirt, in the Premier League. I wonder how the former Palace captain is feeling tonight, against his old teammates.
13 min: And from the corner, Richards rises at the near post and nods over! The Palace defender should probably have scored, jumping over Guéhi.
12 min: Another foray from Palace down the left! City don’t look comfortably defensively in this new formation and Johnson streams down the left wing unopposed. He crosses for Pino, alone on the penalty spot, and the Spaniard shoots towards the bottom corner … but Gvardiol gets back to make a crucial block! The ball squirts behind for a corner.
10 min: A word for Jaydee Canvot, who has slotted into the Palace defence to replace the outgoing Marc Guéhi, to Manchester City of course. The French teenager has been sensational and the only Palace player to start the last 17 matches for the club.
8 min: A couple of City corners, but Palace head the ball away to safety.
6 min: Palace are defending deep but have twice sprung forward quickly on the counter attack, latterly with Mitchell down the left. The Palace academy product couldn’t find the right pass, though, and was eventually run out of play.
4 min: I had City down pre-match as a 4-3-3 but I think they might be playing wing backs tonight, with Aït-Nouri and Mateus Nunes on either flank? It’s not actually very clear. Gvardiol looks as though he is playing in midfield when City are in possession and slots in as a centre-back when Palace have the ball. My head hurts.
Crystal Palace goal disallowed?!
2 min: It’s not clear if the ball crossed the line as Mateta connects with a Johnson cross, but the former Nottingham Forest winger is eventually called back for offside, only after Donnarumma claws the ball out from his goalmouth. Replays show that Johnson was just off, so correct decision. A good start from Palace!
Peeeeeeep!
The teams are out! City in their sky blue, Palace in their away gold strip. We are ready to go!
“Fantasy managers everywhere who waited patiently for this week to play their triple captain card on Haaland are cursing Pep right now,” sighs Robert Jenkins.
A big night, then, for Phil Foden. The 2024 PFA Players’ Player of the Year has been very underwhelming this season and has fallen out of Guardiola’s favoured XI in recent months. At the moment, Foden looks unlikely to make England’s World Cup squad. In terms of No 10s, Morgan Rogers, Jude Bellingham, Eberechi Eze, Cole Palmer (if fit) and Morgan Gibbs-White are ahead of Foden at present, I would suggest. Time for the 25-year-old to step up.
“Wow! Pep leaving his three best attackers on the bench!” writes Justin Kavanagh. “He’s definitely choosing tails in that title coin-flip tonight.”
Pep Guardiola explains his team selection to Sky Sports:
There is a risk in making changes but the manager is here to take the risk. We have to take it. People may not believe me but I trust my players. In three days we have to travel to London, it’s always a long trip, while Chelsea do not have to travel. Then we immediately have to travel to Bournemouth [for next Tuesday’s game], one of the top-form teams, so everyone has to play these three games. The Premier League is so complicated. If those games were five or six days later, maybe the situation would have been different.
“Never mind who plays for Palace tonight it’s more about how; they were embarrassing at Bournemouth last week, the amount of tanking going on there was more to suited to Bovington a few miles up the road,” emails Dave Estherby.
Let’s unpack those teams.
Remarkably, it looks like Pep Guardiola is resting some of his key players for this Saturday’s FA Cup final. That is something of a shock, given the ongoing title race. There are six changes from the side that beat Brentford 3-0 on Saturday.
Josko Gvardiol makes a welcome return to the starting XI after a five-month absence. Phil Foden hasn’t started a league game since 4 March, but he comes in as well. This is Savinho’s first league start since New Year’s Day.
Palace make four changes but a couple of omissions aside, this is close to their strongest XI. Jean-Philippe Mateta makes his 199th appearance for Palace, Pino comes in for Sarr, while Lerma and Hughes replace Wharton and Kamada. It’s probably those latter two changes that weaken the visitors the most.
Team news! Haaland, Doku and Cherki on the City bench!
Manchester City (4-3-3): Donnarumma; Nunes, Khusanov, Guéhi, Gvardiol; Ait-Nouri, Bernardo (c), Foden; Semenyo, Savinho, Marmoush
Subs: Trafford, Dias, Reijnders, Stones, Ake, Kovacic, Haaland, Cherki, Doku.
Crystal Palace (3-4-2-1): Henderson (c); Richards, Lacroix, Canvot; Munoz, Lerma, Hughes, Mitchell; Johnson, Pino; Mateta.
Subs: Benitez, Sarr, Clyne, Kamada, Wharton, Strand Larsen, Riad, Devenny, Cardines.
City’s women, of course, have already been already champions of England this season. And now they have a purpose-built £10m training facility to boot.
The state of play at the top of the Premier League table, as if you need reminding. This feels like last-chance saloon for City, win or bust.
Here’s what Pep Guardiola had to say before tonight’s match.
We lost the two finals of the FA Cup because the referees didn’t do their jobs they should do, even the VAR. When this happens it is because we have to do better, not the referees or VAR.
I never trust anything since I arrived [at City] a long time ago. Always I learned you have do it better – be in a position to do it better because [if not] you blame yourself with what you have to do, because [VAR] is a flip of a coin. You have to do better and better for yourself, and that is focusing on Crystal Palace for us.”
This isn’t the only crucial match to help decide a British title race tonight. It’s an absolutely gargantuan evening in Scotland: if Hearts beat Falkirk and Celtic lose to Motherwell, the Edinburgh side will be crowned champions for the first time since 1960.
Preamble
Manchester City should win this. Should. By the time that Arsenal play Burnley on Monday, Manchester City should be just two points behind the Gunners with two games to play. Should.
Of course, things are rarely as simple as should. It wasn’t too long ago that Palace were Manchester City’s bogey team – literally any excuse to wheel out the Andros Townsend volley from 2019, a Puskas Award nominee – and Guardiola will remember last year’s FA Cup final all too well.
The smart money says that Palace’s heroics won’t be repeated here. Palace have nothing to play for in the Premier League, other than keeping form and fitness for the Conference League final later this month. That European final comes just three days after their final match of the season, against Arsenal no less, and there is plenty of scrutiny on Oliver Glasner’s team selection both in that game and this evening against City. Will Palace’s manager rest his best? Will those that play perform with the same drive and verve as is normally expected? Glasner has hinted at squad rotation: “I’m responsible for Crystal Palace and I get paid for doing the best things for Crystal Palace and not for City and not for Arsenal.”
Motivation for City, of course, is not a problem. They have everything to play for domestically, both in the Premier League and this Saturday’s FA Cup final against Chelsea, and (that fateful 3-3 draw at Everton aside) are on a relentless run of form. Everything points to a City win and that’s exactly why we are here, in case it’s not.
Kick-off: 8pm BST.
