Photo credit: Sports Vision
In the second round of the season, Crystal Palace drew with Liverpool in a battle that made Crystal Palace attract a lot of eyeballs. Not only because of the game itself, but also because of Crystal Palace defender Anderson's repeated provocations against Darwin on the field, which eventually led to the latter's out-of-control foul and was sent off with a red card. The toughness of Crystal Palace under Vieira's coaching is increasing with each passing day, putting Liverpool under pressure. It is worth mentioning that Crystal Palace had a win and a draw against Manchester City last season, with City failing to beat them. In the past four visits to the Etihad Stadium, Crystal Palace gained a total of 7 points (2 wins, 1 draw and 1 loss), while Manchester City only won 1 at home, so it can be seen that Crystal Palace has a certain advantage over Manchester City.
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Lucky for Manchester City, Crystal Palace's number one striker Wilfried Zaha was unable to play due to injury, which was undoubtedly a huge loss for Crystal Palace. Guardiola also made tactical adjustments for this game, placing Mahrez on the right wing, Busquets into midfield and Gündoğan on standby as a substitute. In the back line, Stones and Ruben Diaz partner, Ake and Gralish as two wings, Laporte is off due to injury.
Guardiola is good at rotating his lineup, allowing the impactful Mahrez to keep pounding the opponent's side, and finally the technical players to complete the fatal blow. Last season, this tactical arrangement allowed Busquets and Gündoğan to rest. Nowadays, no matter who the newcomers are paired with, they have to adapt to this rotation system. Even if City's technical passing isn't as strong when Mahrez starts as it was when both were on the pitch at the same time, it's a strategy that has to be adopted or else it will be difficult to get through the long season.
Expecting a game full of physical collisions and stalemates, City were dealt a blow just four minutes into the game when Crystal Palace were unlucky with an own goal by Stones from a corner, which went through two refractions between Walker and Stones and three deflections when Eze set up the ball.
Conceding a goal was not fatal, but then City started to be pressurized by Crystal Palace. Crystal Palace strikers Eduardo and Schlupp went up against City's center backs, while Eze and J. Ayew on the sides also came up at the right time, as if choking City's throat and preventing them from getting the ball out of their waist position.
Photo credit: Sports Vision
Vieira, being from the back, knows the importance of defending against Manchester City attackers. He chose to top the Manchester City waist position, rather than directly grab the ball, which can effectively prevent Manchester City to carry out two-wing mobilization, intercept the pass and play counterattack. This made City play a very depressing game in the first half, and the speed of attack dropped significantly.
Crystal Palace took another corner in the 21st minute and again Stones made the mistake of missing the aerial ball that was coming at him head on and Anderson had an easy header at the back post.
City trailed by two points at half-time, and Guardiola began to adjust his tactics at the start of the second half, with De Bruyne clearly moving to the right, and Busquets supporting the right, while freely choosing the left and right sides. Guardiola pulled the two sides apart to increase the number of people, so that the back of the ball as soon as possible, to avoid being robbed of the counterattack.
Crystal Palace were affected and could have opted to strengthen their midfield pressing for counter-attacks, but instead chose to go to the wing to engage with City, resulting in a slightly drawn midfield line.
Guardiola was ready to replace Mahrez with the underperforming Canalos for Gündogan and Alvarez. However, before executing the substitutions, City picked up a goal.
In the 53rd minute, City sometimes pulled the side wide to prepare for the cross, sometimes let the winger burst forward, Crystal Palace midfield line between blocking and retreating and the back line to block the breakthrough was constantly played by City. Busquets received the ball on the right side of the box, low shot in the 18-yard box, the ball is a little change of direction, so that the goalkeeper can not judge.
