Crystal Palace vs Man City Odds
| Crystal Palace Odds | +940 |
| Man City Odds | -350 |
| Draw | +470 |
| Over / Under | 2.5 -162 / +121 |
Man City kick off match week 32 of the Premier League season with a trip to South London to face Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park.
When these two sides last squared off in December, City cruised to a comfortable 2-0 lead before a couple of defensive lapses in the final 15 minutes allowed Palace to leave Manchester with a point. Outside of their two goals, the Eagles mustered just 0.12 expected goals on three shots and City had 76% of the possession.
Whether Crystal Palace can put together a better performance at home remains to be seen. With Manchester City -300 — 75% implied probability — to take all three points and chasing a fourth consecutive title, it's definitely unlikely they will get just as good, if not better, of a result.
Read on for my Crystal Palace vs Manchester City prediction and Premier League match preview.
Crystal Palace
The most important note on this match for Palace is they've changed manager since their last encounter with City. Roy Hodgson departed, and now the Austrian Oliver Glasner — formerly of Eintracht Frankfurt, where he won the Europa League — is manning the touchline. With that comes a change in style and structure, although somewhat ironically, Hodsgon deployed a 5-4-1 deep block at the Etihad, which is what the Cityzens should expect to see when they reach the final third in this contest. In front of their home support, Palace should be slightly more proactive against the ball higher up the pitch in a 5-2-3 mid-block this time around.
The second-most important note is the expected absences of Michael Olise, Marc Guéhi and Chris Richards. Glasner has played Eberechi Eze behind a striker pairing of Jordan Ayew and Jean-Philippe Mateta in light of Olise's injury, and he has Joel Ward and Jefferson Lerma operating as the wide center backs in his trademark back three. It's certainly not an ideal situation personnel and profiling-wise for the Palace boss, but he's still managed to take five points from his first five league fixtures to put a comfortable distance between his side and the relegation zone.
Man City
Manchester City are one of the best – if not the best – teams in the world, and have been for some time. However, they have struggled with Palace in recent years, mainly at the Etihad, but this remains a bogey matchup for them. Coming off a dominant 4-1 victory against Aston Villa, where they were able to rest Erling Haaland, Kevin De Bruyne and John Stones, they should still be feeling optimistic about their chances.
If Guardiola inserts Stones back into the starting XI after he suffered a minor injury over the international break, the Cityzens' whole complexion with the ball changes. From a technical ability and positional intelligence standpoint, Rico Lewis is just as capable of forming an auxiliary double pivot with Rodri, but defense-wise there's no one City would rather have in that role.
Stones and Rodri will be crucial to the visitors' success this match, and Guardiola will likely have one of them pushing even further forward in certain moments to overload Palace's five-man back line. Under Glasner, the Eagles have also struggled to block passing lanes to and close down opposing players between the lines, which doesn't bode well with Phil Foden and De Bruyne likely occupying those spaces this match.
Crystal Palace vs Man City
Betting Pick & Prediction
City will dominate territory and possession in this affair, and thus the home side will have to rely on transitions and set pieces to create chances. With the exception of a 3-0 win against a Burnley team that was a man down for the majority of the match, Palace have struggled to generate bona fide scoring opportunities in Glasner's short time at the club. Against this City outfit, with no Olise and strikers that aren't the biggest vertical threats, that struggle seems destined to continue.
Manchester City haven't conceded in their last four trips to Selhurst Park, and I'd give them no less than a 60% chance of keeping a clean sheet in this one. Thus, at about 53% implied probability, hammer the under on Crystal Palace's team total of 0.5.
