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2023/24 English Premier League
Matchday 17
Manchester City v Crystal Palace
Etihad Stadium
Manchester, England
Saturday, 16 December 2023
Kick-off is at 17h00
Manchester City will be looking to build on their first win in five
Premier League games when they welcome Crystal Palace to the Etihad Stadium on Saturday, December 16.
The Citizens arrested a worrying four-match winless run as they beat Luton 2-1 at Kenilworth Road on December 10 to remain three points ahead of Tottenham in fourth place.
Pep Guardiola's side are four points behind league leaders Liverpool, who replaced Arsenal (2nd) at the summit courtesy of a 2-1 win at Selhurst Park on December 9 after the Gunners lost 1-0 to Aston Villa at Villa Park.
The Villans (3rd) maintained the two-point gap to City as they continued their remarkable run of form to go unbeaten in their last five outings and stay in touch with the frontrunners.
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The Eagles have now lost four of their last five league encounters to slide down to 15th in the standings after picking up just one point during that period.
Bournemouth leapfrogged them into 14th spot thanks to a stunning 3-0 victory over Manchester United at Old Trafford and Roy Hodgson's side find themselves five points adrift of the top 10.
Jack Grealish hasn't quite had the same impact for City as last season, although injury and suspension has limited his involvement. The England winger scored the winner against the Hatters last time out to make it two goals in two games, having sit out the 1-0 defeat to Villa after serving a one-match ban for an accumulation of yellow cards.
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Odsonne Edouard will be hoping for a better performance against the defending champions after struggling to get into the game at Goodison Park, which saw him substituted at half-time. The French striker made an impressive start to the season, scoring four goals in his first five appearances before enduring a bit of a barren run, finding the back of the net just twice in his next 10 outings.
Guardiola admitted the result against Luton was "significant" for his team after their recent sticky patch and stressed the importance of not allowing his players' heads to drop after the conceded on the stroke of half-time.
"We cannot feel sorry for ourselves. It's football, it's life," the Spaniard said. "[I asked] strikers to be more aggressive to score goals and we need to defend crosses in the last minutes.
"Big teams are defined by these situations. I don't like to see us winning 4-0 for many games in a row. Four games without winning and playing a team the way they played with big strikers, it's not easy to do that.
"The success we had is because we knew how difficult it is to win here... Whether the result is significant for people, I don't care. The win is significant for us."
Hodgson was disappointed to come away from their clash against Liverpool with nothing to show for the efforts after Harvey Elliott scored a dramatic 91st-minute winner.
"We've had a lot of hard ones to take - this is just another one along the way," he said. "I'm gutted for the players, because I'm gutted about the way the game panned out.
"I think having to play the game with 10 men for the last 15 or 20 minutes was unbelievably harsh on us. I don't believe it was worthy of the way we played.
"To play with 10 men for the last 15-plus minutes, in a game up to that point we'd dealt with well, was a really, really harsh outcome and certainly not worthy of what the team produced up to that point.
"It's saddening to watch games like that, where a team does so well as the boys did, and worked so hard against all the odds, and have to go along having lost two goals to one."
Head-to-Head (Last Five Premier League Meetings)
Matches - 5
Man City - 3
Palace - 1
Draws - 1
Premier League Matchday 17 fixtures:
Friday, December 15
22h00: Nottingham Forest v Tottenham Hotspur
Saturday, December 16
17h00: Bournemouth v Luton Town
17h00: Chelsea v Sheffield United
17h00: Manchester City v Crystal Palace
17h00: Newcastle United v Fulham
19h30: Burnley v Everton
Sunday, December 17
16h00: Arsenal v Brighton & Hove Albion
16h00: Brentford v Aston Villa
16h00: West Ham United v Wolverhampton Wanderers
18h30: Liverpool v Manchester United
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