Overview information
Palace's last two seasons have ended with historical milestones under the leadership of former coach Oliver Glasner, who brought the team to the FA Cup and Conference League championships. His departure leaves the current coach Pierre Sage with great pressure.
In this season's opening match, Palace lost to Everton 0-2 away from home. However, Palace may consider themselves unlucky to lose, because they have created an average of 1.96 expected goals compared to 1.12 for Everton, and if they had finished better, they could have turned four big missed opportunities into three points.
If they want to avoid losing to Man City in the home match, Crystal Palace needs to show excellent scoring ability, because they have lost 6 of their last 10 encounters with Man City and only won once in that streak. That was the 1-0 victory in the FA Cup final in 2025.
Meanwhile, Enzo Maresca's Man City is taking the first steps into the post-Pep Guardiola era, and although their performance in the opening match was not really perfect, they still won extremely important points.
After a 0-3 defeat to Arsenal in the English Super Cup match, Man City recovered their spirits by reversing to defeat Bournemouth in the first round.
Maresca's team was one goal behind when the first half ended, but Marc Guehi's equalizing goal in the 84th minute and Josko Gvardiol's decisive goal in injury time reversed the situation.
Man City hopes to have an easy victory when playing Crystal Palace. But with a not very solid defense, this goal is not easy to achieve. Worse, Man City only won two of the last five away matches last season, and with a squad in a transitional phase, it is still necessary to see how they will perform away from home in the 2026-2027 season.
Force information
Crystal Palace will not have the service of Ismaila Sarr, who is recovering from a groin injury. Ismaila Sarr herself is also a top target for Liverpool. Therefore, Dwight McNeil and Eddie Nketiah may start behind striker Jean-Philippe Mateta.
In defence, centre-back Chadi Riad is sidelined with a knee injury, however Jaydee Canvot, Chris Richards and Takehiro Tomiyasu will be available to form Sage's defensive trio.
On Man City's side, they will be without left winger Jeremy Doku in the process of recovering from a calf injury.
In his absence, Phil Foden, Nico O'Reilly and Antoine Semenyo will likely play as an attacking trio, supporting main striker Erling Haaland.
In another development, midfielder Elliot Anderson is in the process of recovering from a thigh injury and his ability to play is still open, if he cannot play, Mateo Kovacic may start along with Marc Guehi in Maresca's central midfielder position.
Expected lineup:
Crystal Palace: Henderson, Canvot, Richards, Tomiyasu, Munoz, Wharton, Kamada, Mitchell, McNeil, Nketiah, Mateta.
Man City: Donnarumma, Lewis, Khusanov, Dias, Gvardiol; Kovacic, Guehi, Foden, O'Reilly, Semenyo, Haaland.
