Crystal Palace vs Manchester City

Updated: Aug 4, 2023

Hi everyone,

Hope you all well

On Sunday 14th April I went to the Crystal Palace vs Manchester City match. When we played them away last year we managed to win the game 3-2 which was one of the best days of my life being a Palace fan 😂. We were going into the game expecting nothing because City are in the title race along with Liverpool, but if we were to win it would definitely be an added bonus. This was Benteke's first start in a while over Batshuayi, was this the correct decision from Roy?

So the game started at 2.05PM and city started it off, after this they had most of the possession of the ball throughout the whole match. It wasn’t till the 5th minute Palace were able to get the ball out of there own half down the left side, but they were unsuccessful as Milivojevic had a shot which went over the bar. I think ever palace fans heart stopped in the 10th minute when City built up an attack when the ball went to Sterling who was unable to score from 8 yards out, there was a sign of relief from Palace.

City had a very good start and it paid off in the 15th minute when Raheem Sterling buried the ball in the net, Palace shouldn’t have let him get into the position to be able to get the shot. In the 21st minute Jeffery Schlupp had to be subbed off after picking up an injury, I hope it isn’t too bad and he’s back very soon. He was subbed for Kouyate who helped improve the game for Palace when he came on. The next piece of action for Palace came in the 31st minute when Milivojevic was able to get the ball into the box to Kouyate but it was dealt with by the City defence. Nothing else happened before half time. Palace now have 45 minutes to get themselves a goal will it happen? Palace were able to create some chances but had a problem getting it through City’s defence. Unfortunately City scored again in the 63rd minute when Silva played the ball into the box to Sterling who was able to put the ball into the net for the second time. Palace had their second shot of the game when Benteke met the ball in the box from a cross but was only able to shoot straight into Ederson’s arms. In the 81st minute Palace were awarded a free kick on the edge of the box, Luka Milivojevic Palace’s top goal scorer stepped up to take it and was able to bury the ball into the bottom corner, another amazing set piece taken by the Serbian. Luka is the only player to score in both the home & away game against Man City this season. The game was now on. Palace then decided to play with some intensity but was it too late. For the remainder of the game City tried to keep the ball in the corner but palace were able to get it out to create a chance which again was unsuccessful. In the 90th minute City's Kevin De Bruyne was able to play a ball down the centre of the pitch to Gabriel Jesus who was then able to score City’s third and final goal of the game making it 3-1, there was some controversy as Jesus was offside so in my eyes the goal shouldn’t have counted, next season there should be less goals like this given if VAR is introduced. The game was then over and the final score was 3-1 to Manchester City.

After the game I stayed behind to see the players most of them stopped to have pictures but some didn’t mentioning no names snuck out the other way, ahem Zaha, ahem Wan Bissaka 😂. I saw Luka Milivojevic (who was very nice as he waited for my mum to get her phone cause mine stopped working), Scott Dann, Julián Speroni, Martin Kelly, Cheikhou Kouyate and James McArthur. As we were walking to the car we saw Zaha driving out in his Lambo.