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Crystal Palace’s Jason Puncheon leaves Manchester City in disarray Crystal Palace’s Jason Puncheon leaves Manchester City in disarray
(about 1 hour later)
Manchester City must privately have known the game had been up for a while, but this was grim confirmation their title defence is over. Manuel Pellegrini’s team are nine points behind Chelsea and will limp into Sunday’s Old Trafford derby languishing fourth in the table, their priorities switched from silverware to securing a Champions League place without the need for a qualifying round in August. Manchester City must privately have known the game had been up for a while, but this was dismal confirmation their title defence has been curtailed, buried for good in the joyous din that erupted in this corner of south London. Manuel Pellegrini’s team are nine points from Chelsea and will limp into Sunday’s derby at Old Trafford after three successive away league defeats and languishing in fourth. The manager is in denial if he thinks his own position will not come under more scrutiny than ever in the weeks ahead.
That is damning. The din that greeted the final whistle here was reminiscent of the mood when Crystal Palace summoned conviction and quality to damage Chelsea and Liverpool last season under Tony Pulis, with Alan Pardew now left to celebrate with gusto on the touchline at the end. Life in mid-table has never felt so buoyant for this club. For their visitors, enduring a third successive away defeat in the league, everything about this campaign is starting to grate. That their ambitions have now in effect switched from hoisting silverware to securing an automatic Champions League place, without the need for a qualifying round in August, is damning. Yet that is the grim reality. This campaign has unravelled and, while they could justifiably depart here bemoaning the non-award of a second half penalty and even disputing the validity of Crystal Palace’s opening goal, this was all too frenzied and untidy for comfort. The visitors pummelled 22 shots from their monopoly of possession but they ended up beaten by “diligence, character, resilience”, qualities rattled off by Alan Pardew through a deadpan that suggested he had been left exhausted even in victory.
City had arrived with fond memories of this corner of south London. Selhurst Park had been the arena in which they had wrested back control of last season’s championship, Pellegrini’s team inspired by Yaya Touré that Sunday last April to capitalise fully on Liverpool’s defeat to Chelsea on Merseyside earlier in the day. Edin Dzeko had eased them ahead early on and they had never looked back, even if it was Touré, opponents bouncing off him as he rampaged forward, who had stamped true authority on the occasion. This trip had felt like a salvage operation in comparison, the title having all but been ripped away, but the manager had vowed to “fight on until the end”. He could afford to admire the displays delivered by his strong-arm centre-halves, excellent goalkeeper, workaholic midfield and a centre-forward in Glenn Murray whose nomadic career has taken in spells from Workington to Wilmington Hammerheads, Barrow to Brighton. Vincent Kompany and Martín Demichelis never truly nullified his nuisance value, outwitted as they were by canny centre-forward play. A fifth goal in as many top-flight appearances was window dressing to Murray’s all-round display. He also claimed the free-kick from Fernandinho from which Jason Puncheon doubled the hosts lead early in the second half but, deep down, City will know they should not be made to feel diminished by 31-year-old journeymen enjoying Indian summers to careers spent largely in the lower divisions.
His team were true to their word initially, monopolising possession and striking up their rhythm as the hosts sat far too deep. Julián Speroni was forced into a series of sharp stops, reacting late as the ball fizzed through the clutter of team-mates ahead of him, turning over a David Silva shot with his shoulder and one from the goalkeeper’s Argentinian compatriot Sergio Agüero with his outstretched right palm. When he was beaten, the striker skimmed a low shot on to the far post. The pressure was incessant, Palace pinned back as City swarmed all over them, and yet their rugged resistance remained and, remarkably, they retired at the interval ahead. This, like the defeat to Burnley in their previous Premier League trip, may end up illustrating the scale of reinvigoration required in the summer ahead. Only two of City’s out-field starters here were under 29 and one of those, Vincent Kompany, chalks up that landmark on Friday. They were busy enough in possession, pinging their passes with menace around the Palace penalty area, but only four of that huge tally of shots tested Speroni. One he blocked from David Silva with his shoulder, another from Sergio Agüero with his outstretched right hand. James McArthur hacked another from Fernandinho away from under the crossbar, and Murray had choked the midfielder’s earlier effort unnoticed with his right hand.
The lead felt utterly unlikely. Other than a shot blazed into the stand by Wilfried Zaha from Martin Kelly’s centre after 72 seconds, they had been unable to liberate either the former Manchester United forward or Yannick Bolasie on the opposite flank. Without those wingers firing, this team can feel blunted. Yet Zaha won his team’s only corner of the period just after the half-hour and, despite Jason Puncheon’s delivery proving uncharacteristically slapdash, Palace still found a way to prosper. Joel Ward, on his 100th appearance for the club, clipped the ball back towards the bodies on the edge of the box, with Joe Ledley leaping above Fernandinho to head on. Scott Dann appeared to be in an offside position as he volleyed goalwards but, when Joe Hart blocked with his feet, Glenn Murray reacted before Martín Demichelis to prod into the empty net. Yet it still felt vaguely surprising when Yaya Touré shrugged himself from his own fitful display – occasionally at his brutish best, just as often rather sluggish, and nothing like the player who rampaged in this arena as City all but claimed the title last April – to fizz in a riposte 12 minutes from time, but there was to be no relief at the end. Pellegrini mumbled through his post-match assessments, questioning how his team had lost. “But with the way we played, we must win this game,” he insisted as if trying to convince himself. He was right in the sense there were periods when Palace creaked under the weight of the pressure, sitting so deep the penalty area was starved of oxygen, but it still felt a familiar kind of City loss. Turf Moor and Selhurst Park have claimed six points from their title defence.
Vincent Kompany and Gaël Clichy led the livid protests at the award while the forward, finally enjoying an opportunity at this level and demonstrating he may just belong, celebrated a fifth top-flight goal in as many appearances. Not that he was finished there, the striker duly wriggling towards the penalty area in the opening exchange of the second half and drawing a foul from Fernandinho. Puncheon’s resultant free-kick was sumptuous, for all that City’s defensive wall appeared horribly flimsy, with Hart’s dart across his goalline in vain. Palace can rejoice, now convinced of safety, at the prospect of ruffling feathers at this level again next term. Pardew’s impact has been staggering. Tony Pulis inherited a more crestfallen team last season but the new incumbent took over a side in the bottom three and has secured 22 points from 11 matches. This was a different kind of win to savour, with the free-spirited wingers Wilfried Zaha and Yannick Bolasie reserving their best work for defence. They had plucked the lead from incessant City pressure, Joel Ward lofting the ball towards the penalty area for Joe Ledley to flick on and Scott Dann to volley at goal. Joe Hart kept that shot out but Murray tapped in, the visitors’ vociferous complaints thereafter centring on whether Dann had been offside.
Suddenly, all that early dominance had been wrecked, what composure on display offered up by Palace with their rugged defence and spring on the counterattack. Pellegrini merely added to the impression of chaos being demonstrated by his side by indicating to the fourth official that he wished to replace Kompany with Eliaquim Mangala, only to change his mind when play had stopped. Touré’s dopy reaction at a defensive wall early in the second half arguably helped Puncheon curl in a glorious second. “That was about resilience and good organisation,” added Pardew, “with great character in the team. We got a bit of luck and there were some scary moments … about 23 of them, I counted. But we managed to see it through. It was our night.” It has not been City’s season.
The frustration gripped in the stands, with Puncheon pelted with objects that appeared to have been thrown from the City support. Palace have had their own problems on that front this season.
They benefited from fortune here as City’s desperation forced them forward, Fernandinho denied a penalty when his shot struck Murray’s hand. A quintet of furious visiting players had surrounded Michael Oliver at that oversight, though the midfielder merely tried again seconds later only for James McArthur somehow to deflect the attempt over the crossbar.
Yet the onslaught was underway and they would not be denied for ever, Touré taking out some of his personal frustration to lash home from the edge of the area via a flick of Agüero’s shorts. Samir Nasri twice might have forced them level in the frantic moments that remained, but this was to be Palace’s night. And, across the capital, Chelsea’s too.