Crystal Palace 2 Man City 4 – De Bruyne double, Grealish’s creativity and squad rotation

Crystal Palace have had a habit in recent years of causing Manchester City problems, so Pep Guardiola will be relieved to have left Selhurst Park with what turned into a comprehensive victory that maintains the pressure on his side’s rivals at the top of the Premier League.

Palace drew 2-2 at the Etihad Stadium in December, meaning City had won only two of their past five meetings, and the hosts took a third-minute lead on Saturday through Jean-Philippe Mateta. His early goal left Guardiola’s rotated team needing to fight back to avoid dropping points in a title race where any kind of slip-up can feel costly.

Fortunately for City, Kevin De Bruyne did what Kevin De Bruyne does: smashing in a brilliant equaliser 10 minutes later to settle any nerves.

Rico Lewis struck two minutes after half-time, the 11th goal City have scored in the first 15 minutes of second halves this season, a tally bettered only by Tottenham Hotspur (15).

De Bruyne teed up Haaland for a close-range finish midway through the second half to effectively end Palace’s hopes. There was still time for City to add to their tally: Jack Grealish involved in creating a goal for the fourth time in the match as he helped Rodri tee up De Bruyne for his second.

Odsonne Edouard poked in a late consolation for Palace but, by that stage, the game was long gone.

Sam Lee addresses the key questions from the game…

A timely reminder of Grealish’s creative ability?

The first part of what City needed for the end of the season was for Grealish to come back into the team — the obvious yet exaggerated example is that even if he had played poorly in the game against Liverpool at Anfield last month, he would’ve probably looked after the ball far more than Julian Alvarez did, given he had a nightmare day at the office.

Grealish gives City, well, this: “The quality to keep the ball, extra passes, make the team tighter and closer between each other, defensively and offensively,” as Guardiola said last month.

And that, especially in tough away games as this, is vital to City’s plan.

But the second part of what they needed for the end of the season was for Grealish not just to return, but to play well. He has had an up-and-down season and when he finally looked to be getting back to his best, in games against Copenhagen and Luton, he went off injured.

Against Arsenal last weekend, he came on — but, ironically, City did not need extra passes and their lines to be close together quite as much as usual, because Arsenal were not especially minded to attack. So a huge part of what makes him so important was redundant.

Fast forward six days and he has shown not just his ball retention abilities but his creative contribution, playing a huge role in each of City’s four goals.

For a player plagued by stats — or a lack of them; many observers want more goals and assists — he can not only point to all the stuff that does not earn Fantasy Premier League points, but also games such as this, when he has done the hard work for somebody else to get the assist or the goal.

What did this tell us about Guardiola’s squad rotation?

A casual glance at City’s Premier League fixture list might suggest a fairly forgiving run-in, with games against Luton, Brighton & Hove Albion, Nottingham Forest and West Ham United on the horizon. But on top of the particular threats those teams can actually cause, there is the added complication that City will have, or may have, plenty of Champions League games thrown into the mix.

This trip, like the midweek game against Aston Villa, was complicated by the obvious fact that Guardiola had fitness concerns in mind and the first leg against Real Madrid coming up on Tuesday. Luton next weekend, an attractive fixture though it is, will also require Guardiola to make changes, and in recent seasons these matches have become more complicated than necessary as a result.

Changes will be required and City do have a small squad, so it is hugely important they can look at academy players like Rico Lewis and Oscar Bobb and be confident they can make a big contribution. Lewis was superb in midweek and got an important goal here, while Bobb came back in for his first start since January and looked right at home. You cannot put a price on that at this stage of the season.

Why do City occasionally look unusually vulnerable?

City are certainly heading into the Madrid game in encouraging form, having been excellent against Aston Villa and extremely impressive against Palace, but there have been a few scares across those matches that will more than likely become relevant again in the coming weeks, perhaps even on Tuesday at the Bernabeu.

City’s defensive efforts, particularly after losing the ball, were phenomenal against Villa, but Unai Emery’s side still combined very well on several occasions to carve out some big chances on the break.

Palace were the same, and although City controlled a large percentage of the match and looked very comfortable for the most part, they were also played around for some dangerous counter-attacks. The fact that they did so well to stop that happening for so much of the match should not be overlooked, and will certainly stand them in good stead for future games, but they still look a little vulnerable to those counter-attacks even when playing very well.

What did Guardiola say?

We will bring you this after he has spoken at the post-match press conference.

What next for City?

Tuesday, April 9: Real Madrid (A), Champions League, 8pm BST, 3pm ET

The quarter-finals are really too soon for these two to be meeting, but here we are — current European champions City in the Bernabeu for a first leg against the club they succeeded, after beating them in the semis last year.

This is the fourth time in five seasons City have faced Madrid in the knockout phase, also coming out on top in 2019-20, when the Covid-19 pandemic meant the two games were played more than five months apart.

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(Top photo: Eddie Keogh/Getty Images)

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