Manchester City - 1 (Horlock 10.)
Crystal Palace - 0
A good through ball found Dougie Freedman, but he was immediately robbed of the ball by Stuart Pearce, and City then showed why they were on top of the table, passing the ball, and retaining possession for long periods of play. The first corner fell to the home side, and a good ball in by Darren Huckerby fell nicely for Danny Tiatto, his shot going well wide of the mark. The next corner was well dealt with by Matt Clarke, but the writing was on the wall that City were building their moves with great patience, and a goal could surely not be far away.
A promising move by Palace saw Clinton Morrison and Steve Thomson link well, but the defence was equal to the task, and "worried" the attackers off the ball. A free kick to Palace failed to find Dougie, and City were once again on the attack. This time Richard Dunne sent a shot just wide of the post, but almost straight after they forced a corner, and there was no escape for Palace, with Kevin Horlock heading home the simplest of chances.
Niclas Jensen was next to get through on goal, but his shot was headed away by on-loan defender Shaun Murphy. The clearance fell to Tiatto, but once again his shot was off target, and the Palace faithful breathed a little easier. A couple of long punts upfield failed to find their mark for the Palace attack, and when we managed to get the ball into the attacking zone we were well forced off the ball by a resolute defence.
Palace gradually made headway, but even when they got the ball to the right end of the field there seemed to be no way through the City players, and one can only assume that ex-Palace keeper Carlo Nash was getting somewhat bored with the proceedings. Carlo, of course, was the CPISA player of the year some time ago, and he still holds a special place in the hearts of many a Palace supporter. Mind you, it would be nice if he would just let a goal or two in today!
Ali Benarbia was next to attempt a strike on goal, his strike also going wide, and then Clinton almost got free at the other end. At least that woke us all up for a moment, but that was as long as the chance lasted.
A free kick to Palace was taken by Steve, but though it was cleared by Pearce it was almost pounced upon by Aki Riihilahti, who somehow managed to find a little space for himself. A fair bit of end to end play ensued, with neither side taking any advantage, and as half time approached it became clear that we would have to be a lot better than this if we were ever going to really threaten the home side's goal.
About the only surprise at the halftime break was why weren't City a lot further ahead than they currently were? Surely they were at least two or three goals better than Palace, but with only one goal separating the sides there was everything to play for in the second period of play.
Jovan Kirovski came on at the start of the second half, replacing Julian Gray; let's hope the knock he took in the first half was not too serious, and he is back in the side next week. At the other end another ex-Palace player, Sun Jihai, came on for his City debut, replacing Australian Danny Tiatto.
A free kick to Palace saw Hayden Mullins get the ball through to Aki, but as usual he was robbed by the defence before he could do anything with the ball. The only time in the opening stanzas of play that we actually managed to get the ball up the right end of the pitch it was only to find that Clinton was offside. Palace then managed to win their first corner of the match, but the chance was wasted, much as all set play pieces have been of late, and once again City came away with the ball.
Matt managed to avert the danger twice in quick succession at the "wrong" end of the field, as far as we were concerned, and still we could not even get a sniff at goal. A shot from Huckerby went wide once again, and Palace took the opportunity to replace Dougie with Ade Akinbiyi. Ade immediately came into play, but Pearce seemed to be just as capable of closing him out of the play as he was with both Clinton and Dougie.
In what some will class as an attempt on goal finally arrived for Palace when Jovan took a kick form 30 yards out, that actually ended up closer to the corner flag than the post, but at least it was shot in anger from our side. Shaun Goater fired a ball over the top, but the tide was slowly starting to turn, and just maybe City might live to regret that they did not make more of their chances during the preceding 80 minutes of the match.
The change was not greatly evident in scoring opportunities, but Palace finally started to manage to string some passes together, and the home fans were starting to get concerned. Although City gave as good as they got, their one goal advantage was starting to look a little thin, and it only needed one of the myriad of chances coming from Palace for the match to suddenly end up square.
Of course, we never did manage to get the ball in the back of the net, but it was the City supporters that were frantically whistling to signify the end of the match, and Trevor Francis was more than pleased with a display such as this. In reality City should have won by a far larger margin, and should Palace perform as well as the last few minutes of this match in the remaining fixtures then things still look fairly rosy for the rest of this season.
Roll on Walsall, we need a good win to get everything back on track.
Colin Pryce
Manchester City: Carlo Nash, Richard Dunne, Stuart Pearce, Gerard Wiekens, Ali Benarbia, Kevin Horlock, Niclas Jensen, Danny Tiatto (Sun Jihai 46), Shaun Goater (Jonathon Macken 72), Darren Huckerby, Sean Wright-Phillips.
Substitutes not used: Simon Royce, Steve Howey, Lucien Mettomo.
Crystal Palace: Matt Clarke, Dean Austin, Danny Granville, Hayden Mullins, Shaun Murphy, Jamie Smith (Simon Rodger 86), Julian Gray (Jovan Kirovski 46), Aki Riihilahti, Steve Thomson, Dougie Freedman (Ade Akinbiyi 58), Clinton Morrison.
Substitutes not used: Alex Kolinko, Gregg Berhalter.
Attendance: 33,632
Referee: Mr M Clattenburg (Cramlington)