Crystal Palace (A) - Sat 6th April, 12:30 | PL | Pre-Match Thread

[Gone for a Burton]

Exactly, but I’d also understand his point. We are „little bit weaker“ and these bastards are in fantastic form plus they are looking for blood, after we embarrassed them last season.

They are better than last season and are still smarting after last year's humiliation.

Anyone expecting a repeat should take a reality check.

 

[fuskarn]

Any word on Ake?

walker and ake out, ederson might be in the team tomorrow per pep

 

[jimharri]

walker and ake out, ederson might be in the team tomorrow per pep

I'd be tempted to keep Eddy back for the game in Madrid. Stefan has never let us down.

 

[Fordyboy46]

Worst Palace side for some while this . Get the 3 points and pile the pressure on !

They always seem to stifle us though

 

[Eccles Blue]

You've just got to love the way Pep plays the media. He just, as this extract says, 'flat bats' them away. They're just like irritating little mosquitoes aren't they?
BBC website:
'Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola ended his news conference by flat-batting a number of questions - about the hectic fixture schedule and potential changes in how the Premier League will deal with punishments for breaking its profit and sustainability rules.

On PSR he said: "I don't have opinion. What they decide is fine for me. I don't have an opinion."

On the fixture schedule: "We are used to it. For many years it happened that way. We take one game at a time and don't give up. We are used to playing every three days, every month. It's not that we are new to European competition. Players know it and they handle it, for the large part. They each know what they have to do.

"We play [Crystal Palace] at 12.30pm on a Saturday - perfect, more time to the next game against Real Madrid for us to recover. We then play Saturday in the FA Cup - OK, it's not fair but we are going to do it."'

You tell 'em King Pep, you tell 'em. :-)

 

[Jonas.shaffer]

As others have said, I hate playing Palace, too. I just now see that it's an early kick-off, too.

There are some tough calls for Pep, with Madrid looming shortly after. Meanwhile, they're sitting on their asses resting up. You could argue that they lack rhythm, but at this point of the season, I'd take the rest.

This isn't an ideal game for Haaland, but we need to try to play him into better form. Could you risk resting Rodri and Foden? I'll take a wild guess:

Ortega
Akanji, Dias, Gvardiol
Lewis, Kovacic
Bobb, De Bruyne, Nunes, Grealish
Haaland
​

 

[supercity88]

It feels like Palace have had our number but that's more at our place than theirs. Not an easy place to go, but they've not been in great form so we will hopefully get the job done. I never like the early kick offs, but lots of time to recover for Madrid then.

The players don't need motivating for Real and we'll look to play keep ball and kill the intensity so I'm not worried about energy levels either. Madrid are a counter attacking machine, so it will be about passing to feet and only crossing/shooting/playing a killer pass if there's certainty we can execute it. Villa showed on Wednesday how losing it at their box leaves us struggling.

 

[BringBackSwales]

Worst Palace side for some while this . Get the 3 points and pile the pressure on !

Is that Palace who have Olise back tomorrow after 7 games out?

 

[Crooked_rain]

This isn't an ideal game for Haaland, but we need to try to play him into better form.
[/CENTER]

Again, what is this poor form?

He didn't score vs the dippers or arsenal
,wow, 2 games in which forwards for both teams were negated from the game.

Before that he had 10 goals in the space of about 4 weeks, including 4 in the previous 5 league games, 5 in one FA Cup game and one in the Champions League. Probably the most in form striker around before the International break and we have played once since.

Poor form is not scoring for two games, in very tight games with few opportunities? .

It's media bollocks that is completely wrong when you look at the facts.

 

[supercity88]

Is that Palace who have Olise back tomorrow after 7 games out?

Fit to play 20 minutes according to their manager. And based on how he came on and got injured last time, I'd imagine they'll be strict on that. So get the game won long before then and he can stay on the bench until the next game! They'll play on the counter and I'd be very tempted to go with the same team as against Villa with Haaland for Alvarez potentially. Pass and move and be wary of the counter.