Crystal Palace 0 – 2 MAN CITY – MY THOUGHTS

Eleven days ago, following the home draw with Sunderland, I concluded my review by describing how in a week, we have gone from favourites to no-hopers and that our chances of reclaiming the Premier League title were over. Our ambitions of silverware, knocked in dramatic, stinging fashion by Liverpool just days earlier had seemingly taken one blow too many. It was over, I had convinced myself. It was there for Liverpool to cruise home, City trailing and flailing in vain.

Fast forward a couple of games and we have now made the return journey. Buoyed by Chelsea’s surprising victory at Anfield, we produced a superbly efficient display to brush aside the potentially dangerous Crystal Palace and restore ourselves as favourites once again. It is far from finished – Everton at Goodison Park is hardly the fixture we would have selected next up, had we been given the choice - but whereas there was emptiness and utter deflation just over a week ago, hope now burns brightly.

Injected by confidence and belief thanks to Chelsea’s result, what subsequently followed on the pitch at Selhurst Park was close to perfection. That is not to say it was City at their elegant, flowing best. Indeed, it was a disjointed game, scrappy in places and certainly lacking the aesthetic beauty present on many occasions this season when the Blues have galloped home. Yet at a time when the players may have been concentrating elsewhere, they produced a wholly professional performance. It was controlled. It was dominant. It was, and this is not a word often applied to Premier League encounter, easy.

Crystal Palace, on the back of a five-match winning streak, offered nothing. They were much poorer than expected, neither thwarting our attackers endeavours with any urgency, nor pushing forward to create problems of their own. After Edin Dzeko opened the scoring early on – the fifth time in the past seven matches that we have scored within the opening five minutes – it was routine. Our midfield dictated the game, our defence were towering when called into action and there was enough cutting edge to acquire the three points and head into the Everton fixture with momentum.

Yaya Touré, returning from injury to add that extra element of guile to midfield, not to mention the power of his surges forward, was the star of the show, delightful setting up Dzeko’s goal and then notching himself with a measured, curling finish. And yet for all the attention and praise rightly heaped on the Ivorian, it was a team display that oozed class. Joe Hart was only forced into meaningful action once, his defence a collective unit of organised resilience. Martin Demichelis was, once again, commanding alongside Vincent Kompany. Aleks Kolarov and Pablo Zabaleta were dogged in their defending, working hard to prevent crosses coming into the box. James Milner was tireless, the catalyst for much of our pressing. It was the type of controlled away performance we have been yearning for all season and it was delivered at the perfect time.

From favourites to no-hopers and then favourites again, the title charge is most definitely back on.

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