Man City vs Crystal Palace: Preview and Prediction

Saturday 22nd December 2018

England Premier League
Saturday 22nd December 2018
Kick off at 3pm GMT
Venue: Etihad Stadium

Match Preview:

After Manchester City, the Premier League champions lost their first game against Chelsea a few weeks ago, questions were raised and they were started by manager Pep Guardiola. The truth was he wasn’t even angry with the 2-0 defeat. He noted that his side maybe needed to lose in order to learn. This is the sign of a very confident man and City seem very lucky to have him.

Since then the club have bounced back defeating Everton 3-1 and then knocking out Leicester on penalties to reach the Carabao Cup semi finals. They will face Burton and with no disrespect intended City should reach yet another cup final.

In the league they may just be assured of 2^nd place but they will need to keep up the pace and the pressure on Liverpool at the top, they are just one point behind Jurgen Klopp’s men.

City have the advantage of once again being at home and they have an incredible record of played 9 matches and won 9. They will be big odds on favourites to beat Crystal Palace when they come to visit.

Palace are 29 points behind City and we haven’t even reached the halfway stage yet of the season. They beat Leicester 1-0 last weekend in a big result for the club and are just three points from the bottom three places.

Roy Hodgson’s team have lost 70% of their games away from home and picked up just 1 point from their last 15 available on the road. The omens for this game do not look good and Palace could be forgiven for thinking of their Boxing Day match.

Team News:

Manchester City: Vincent Kompany could return to the team after an unspecified injury. David Silva will miss the Christmas matches with a muscle problem.

Crystal Palace: Christian Benteke is still out with a knee injury but could be back by the end of this month. Cheikhou Kouyate has a knock and will be assessed. Wayne Hennessey has an unknown problem and could make a return to the squad this weekend.

Man City vs Crystal Palace Head to Head:

Manchester City have won the last 7 games when at home to Crystal Palace.

Manchester City have scored 10 goals without reply in their last 2 meetings at home to Palace.

Crystal Palace have not scored a goal against City since 2016, 5 games ago.

Man City vs Crystal Palace Prediction:

Manchester City all the way here and Palace need to think ahead of this game. The objective will be focus from Hodgson’s team and not to get tanked, but it is looking that way, at the Etihad just before Christmas day and City will want to sign off in style. There are so many goals in this team it is unreal and at home they have already scored 33 goals, that is almost 4 goals a game. The Eagles have landed, but they won’t conquer.

Man City vs Crystal Palace Betting Tips:

Manchester City to score 4+ goals at 2.25

Anytime goalscorer: Raheem Sterling at 1.90