Man City 0-2 Crystal Palace: Patrick Vieira’s appointment looking like a masterstroke on game-by-game basis

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Jonathan Gorrie30 October 2021

Manchester City’s hopes of retaining the Premier League title suffered a blow after Crystal Palace ran out 2-0 winners at the Etihad Stadium.

On a day when Chelsea moved three points clear following a 0-3 victory away at Newcastle United, not picking up points during a game City would have been expected to win on their own turf was a major surprise, particularly given their recent performance in a 4-1 rout of Brighton and Hove Albion last week.

City fell behind to a Wilfried Zaha goal in the sixth minute and had defender Aymeric Laporte sent off for denying Zaha a goalscoring opportunity on the stroke of halftime.

Gabriel Jesus had an effort for City disallowed for offside by VAR before Conor Gallagher secured the surprise victory for Palace.

For Palace, it was another promising performance under the stewardship of Patrick Vieira.

While appointing him looked a relative risk - particularly given the Frank De Boer experiment - after the stability the Roy Hodgson era brought, the decision to bring him to Selhurst Park is increasingly looking like a masterstroke.

With a £20m new academy now open, the future is looking bright.

Additional reporting from Reuters

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