Premier League: Manchester City vs Crystal Palace Preview

by
Chase Brittingham
October 19, 2019

Photo credit to Ly Nguyen via Flickr

Manchester City vs Crystal Palace Preview

Date: Saturday, October 19th, 2019
Time: 12:30 pm (EST)
Network: NBC & Universo
Location: London, England
Venue: Selhurst Park
Seating Capacity: 25,486

After Andros Townsend’s thunderous strike last season, I look forward to Manchester City vs Crystal Palace matches. His heroics earned him Premier League goal of the season and gave the Eagles a win over high flying Manchester City. Andros Townsend and Wilfried Zaha will be the main attacking focus for Palace.

Crystal Palace are currently sitting in 6th place earning 14 points despite only scoring 8 goals this season. Manchester City are 2 points ahead of Palace in 2nd place and are looking to close the gap on Liverpool.

Much like their victory last season, Crystal Palace will require something magical to get anything from a frustrated Manchester City. Losing twice in their first 8 matches was certainly not the plan for Pep Guardiola. The international break has been kind to City, allowing players to return to full fitness and giving Pep time to plan for upcoming matches.

Team News

Manchester City fans will be pleased to hear that John Stones (thigh) and Kevin De Bruyne (groin) returned to training after taking the international break to recover. Meaning that they are both likely to be in the squad for Saturday’s match. Stones will likely be eased back into the starting lineup after suffering two injuries already this season.

However, Sergio Aguero’s status is still up in the air after a heel injury prevented him from playing on international duty. The Argentine was also in a car accident this week, luckily he is doing well. However, he could start on the bench after quite a hectic week for the striker.

Benjamin Mendy will also not recover in time from a hamstring injury. The Sky Blues are still weakened by two long term injuries. Leroy Sane () and Aymeric Laporte (Meniscus) will be absent from the squad for the foreseeable future.

Crystal Palace are boosted by the return of club captain Luka Milivojevic who missed their victory over West Ham for yellow card accumulation. Milivojevic has been their leading goalscorer for the last two seasons, scoring 22 goals total.

Crystal Palace will be without central defender Mamadou Sakho is suffering from a muscle strain. Over the break he has seemingly recovered from the injury but has not returned to first team training.

By the Numbers

Manchester City and Crystal Palace have met 4 times since Roy Hodgson has taken over the Eagles. In those 4 matches Palace have improved significantly. They conceded 5 goals in their first meeting under Hodgson and then 5 goals in the next three matches combined. In their two meetings last season Palace scored 4 goals including 3 in their shock victory last season at the Etihad.

Crystal Palace currently find themselves in 6th place,their best start since 2015. After the first 8 games of the 2015/16 season, the Eagles were in 4th place. However, they finished the season in 15th.

Crystal Palace have struggled against Manchester City, 2 wins and 1 draw in their previous 12 Premier League clashes. However, Palace will look to continue their great start and improve on their best ever Premier League finish, 10th place in the 2014/15 season.

One of the shortcomings for Roy Hodgon’s side has been the ability to score goals. Since he took over as manager, Crystal Palace have only managed to score 105 goals in 80 Premier League games (1.3 goals per game). Meanwhile, Pep Guardiola’s machine has managed an astounding 215 goals in the same amount of time.

Prediction & Line-Ups Manchester City vs Crystal Palace

In the two matches between these teams last year, Roy Hodgson took two different approaches. At home, where they lost 3-1, Christian Benteke featured between Zaha and Townsend as a target man in order to give Palace time to breathe between Manchester City attacks.

However, at the Etihad Stadium, Benteke was injured so Townsend and Zaha were played as a front two with 4 midfielders behind them. The speed and trickery of those two was enough to give City trouble similarly to Adama Traore last time out. In order to cause problems for a weakened Manchester City defense, Hodgson should stick with pace.

Manchester City are coming off of their second defeat of the season. They first lost to Norwich City and then proceeded to batter Watford 8-0 the following weekend. Two weekends ago they were stunned by Wolves so Palace could be in for a long 90 minutes. Pep Guardiola has had two weeks to prepare for this match and the players have a lot to prove. All of these are bad omens for Crystal Palace despite their good form to start the season.

Roy Hodgson’s men managed to pull of the impossible last season but I think this Saturday afternoon will be a different story. Guardiola and company cannot afford to drop any more points this early in the season. Furthermore, the Sky Blues will be counting on their cross town rivals to take some points away from league leaders Liverpool.

Manchester City XI (4-3-3): Ederson; Cancelo, Fernandinho, Otamendi, Zinchenko; De Bruyne, Rodri, David Silva, Mahrez, Jesus, Sterling

Crystal Palace XI (4-3-2-1): Guaita; Ward, Kelly, Cahill, van Aanholt, McArthur, Milivojevic, Kouyate; Zaha, Townsend; Ayew

Final Score Prediction: Manchester City 5-1 Crystal Palace