Manchester City Crash to Defeat against Crystal Palace

There is no divine right entitling Manchester City to claim a victory against Crystal Palace, victories have to be earned.

When the season comes to its climax, and the total points and performances are tallied, and as journalists start to assemble their teams of the year, quite how important this defeat will be is difficult to guess. Right now losing a game is one thing, but it is the manner of the defeat which is of most concern.

The pace and precision which has been the hallmark of our approach was gone and instead there was a laboured and slow build up. We hardly pressed any buttons. The big push never came, the tank was empty. We could have carried on playing until January and probably would not have scored another goal.

We deserved the loss today. Crystal Palace ran hard and were very well organised. They defended resolutely and left their fast runners in the channels to counter attack and this worked well. We seldom threatened Palace where it hurt. Indeed they let us have most of the possession and about 15 corners because they knew we were not causing them problems.

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Thats not to say it was a bad game. On the contrary it was a game which had everything for the non die hard City fan. It had diving and needle. It had the classic story of the underdog coming good. It had some superb goals and a rear guard action which would have pleased Sparta.

City got the game off to a good start with a well taken goal by Ilkay Gundogan, a rare header from a crossfield pass by Fabian Delph. But City failed to capitalise and squandered some good chances to increase the lead. Instead Kyle Walker led a comedy of errors which gifted the game to Palace.

Walker failed to effectively defend against Schlupp, inexplicably allowing him a free shot which he placed past Ederson. Minutes later we passed the ball to Andros Townsend on the edge of the penalty area and he smashed a wonderful shot into the goal past the flailing Ederson. Walker capped his display by giving away a penalty for Palace’s 3rd goal and ensured the result would be out of reach.

Guardiola threw on Sergio Aguero, Riyad Mahrez and Kevin De Bruyne, but the damage was done. De Bruyne fluked a consolation but this was game over.

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Today the lack of rhythm and the disrupted starting line ups through injury and return all caught up with us, but we know this performance has been coming. It is not the defeats which define us, but the manner with which we respond. Make no mistake, Manchester City must now respond against Leicester City on Boxing Day.

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