Crystal Palace tie will not be walk in the park

When the Premier League reconvenes on Saturday, Manchester City travel to Selhurst Park to take on Crystal Palace. Although a win against sixteenth-placed opposition should be guaranteed for a team of City’s quality, it certainly won’t be plain sailing.

After dropping down to third in the league, Pep Guardiola needs his side to recapture the form that set them off on a ten game winning streak in all competitions at the start of the campaign. But City have only managed to keep one clean sheet in the league all season, and Palace’s significant aerial threat could prove hard to cope with.

Even so, the 2013-14 champions are well favoured to get their title charge back on course when they face up to Alan Pardew’s side who haven’t won since September. Bitcoin sports betting site, Sportsbet, has City at 11/20 to claim all three points on Saturday. The title favourites have the firepower to easily brush the London club aside, but the stats suggest that the game could be a thriller with goals on both sides.  

Palace’s record £32million signing, Christian Benteke, has thus far failed to recapture the dangerous form he showed at Aston Villa two seasons ago. It was expected that with his aptitude in the air and Palace’s penchant for putting crosses into the box, the Belgian would thrive at Selhurst Park. So far, though, he has only scored 4 goals in the league. The huge target man has been getting the chances, however, and has had 30 shots on goal from inside the box with 10 on target, indicating that more goals could be imminent.

Man City’s defensive stats over eleven games may give Benteke and Palace’s other players with strong aerial threat cause for optimism. The Citizens have conceded 53 goal attempts inside the box, 16 of which were headers. Also somewhat discouragingly for City, they equal Swansea on highest number of serious defensive errors with 7, and 2 of those have led to goals. However, Guardiola’s men have by far the best defensive record from set plays. They have only conceded 18 attempts on goal from dead-ball situations, Palace on the other hand have forfeited 43. This term, Scott Dann has flourished from free-kick opportunities, but may find it harder against such organised opposition.

In City’s favour, they have the most potent striker in the league at their disposal and he’s back in a rich vein of form (see above). Sergio Aguero worried some fans as he went through a short dry spell, but with 3 goals and an assist in his last two league games he is primed to demolish a Palace defence that has already let in 19 goals this term. Palace have also conceded a whopping 90 goal attempts in the box so far, and with the deadly Argentine lurking they will need to tighten up or he could run them ragged.

Although things haven’t been going swimmingly for City over the last few weeks, they stand a good chance of getting back on track against Palace. They must not take their opposition lightly, though, as they did with Middlesbrough. City will definitely have to work for the three points here.

This post is written by Peter Holmes.