September 24 2017

Wayne Hennessey made a couple of decent stops

After Crystal Palace found themselves on the end of another brace of goals from City, Mike Scott analyses the player performances in the 5-0 defeat.

The first of consecutive Saturday trips up to Manchester for Palace saw the Eagles getting ripped apart by a rampant City side who seem to be able to score at will at the moment. A much changed XI saw Roy Hodgson put his own stamp on proceedings, but by the end he had little to smile about...

Wayne Hennessey - 6

It might seem strange to say that a keeper had a half-decent game when he had to pick the ball out of his net five times, but Hennessey did make some key saves to prevent the result being a cricket score. In the first half he pulled off a couple of fine stops, including a close-range effort from Fernandinho at a time when Palace were still the game. Was guilty of some wayward long range balls as the side pushed for that elusive first goal, but when the game was still in the balance he did, at least, make the right choices.

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Timothy Fosu-Mensah - 5

Fosu-Mensah returned to the side after being rested against Huddersfield in midweek and, for the first time this season, he replaced Joel Ward on the right side of defence. In the first half an hour he looked very assured, albeit troubled be a rampant Leroy Sane, who he appeared to wind up early on and the pair were involved in a couple of tussles that had the City fans screaming out over. Sane eventually got the better of him, before Raheem Sterling ruined Fosu-Mensah’s weekend completely. Absolutely a game of two halves for the 19-year-old.

Scott Dann - 5

For the first 40 minutes of the game, Dann looked like a new man in Hodgson’s changed-up defence. City, slower in their forward movements than later in the game, he found it hard to get round the back and Dann was first to the header on a number of occasions. Made a superb sliding stop to prevent David Silva getting a very menacing cross in just before Sane did break the deadlock. After the break, City exploited his lack of pace ruthlessly, although few other teams would have been able to do quite the damage that they did.

Mamadou Sakho - 5

Sakho’s first league game since his high-profile return from Liverpool could not have been more testing. Within the first 10 minutes of the game he saw a defensive header graze his own post, so it was evident straight away that he would have a tough afternoon. For the majority of the first half, he did lead a confident defence and the ‘passing from the back’ philosophy that has been so heavy discussed in the past couple of months seemed to be a real option. However, once the second goal went in, Sakho was powerless to ready his troops and was an anonymous figure throughout the second half. It can only get easier for the man.

Patrick van Aanholt - 5

This may be beginning to sound like a broken record, but Van Aanholt also had a strong first 40 minutes alongside Sakho, keeping Kevin De Bruyne relatively quiet. He did get forward when possible, including starting a beautiful move that ended with Ruben Loftus-Cheek knocking wide a golden opportunity to open the scoring.

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Luka Milivojevic - 5

The Serbian looked commanding for about a 20-minute period in the first half, linking up nicely with Loftus-Cheek and Christian Benteke. However, as Hodgson’s wel-laid plans for keeping compact began to fade away and City really turned up the heat, Milivojevic looked absolutely powerless to do anything about it and he saw less and less of the ball.

Yohan Cabaye - 4

Cabaye had a really difficult day at the office, with City neutralising Palace to such an extent that any balls forward seemed to pass over the Frenchman without his input. Very little chance to get back and help his defence, he was substituted for under-fire captain Jason Puncheon (5), who was simply boarding a sunken ship when he arrived just before the hour mark. With virtually no dead ball situations to affect, neither man could help the cause.

Andros Townsend - 5

Some good early pressure from Palace did see Townsend getting some crosses in, including the ball to Loftus-Cheek that saw him miss the away side’s best opportunity of the game, but he lost the ball more than he has during other games this season and, as the game progressed, an increasingly desperate Palace abandoned the counter-attack tactics that they began the game with in favour of long ball tactics and, eventually, very little work in the City half at all, leaving Townsend unable to make runs at all.

Ruben Loftus-Cheek - 6

As arguably has been the case in every game he’s been fit to play for this season, Loftus-Cheek was a shining light in a lost cause for Palace. Playing up behind Benteke and filling that vacuum that had been there all season between the big Belgian and the midfield, he caused all sorts of problems for John Stones and the other City backline players, hitting the post and finding himself in space for the best chance of the game, which he sadly could not convert. Out of his depth in the second half, but was certainly not alone in that.

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Jeffrey Schlupp - 5

Many Palace fans were calling for a Van Aanholt/Schlupp partnership down the left to take advantage of having two talented players with similar skill sets and, before kick off there were plenty of murmurings of happiness about the starting XI. On the day, the away side only had limited chances to see what the pair could do; there were a couple of lovely link-ups in the first few minutes, before Schlupp became virtually anonymous in the second half. Skied a lovely ball that had come through Loftus-Cheek and Milivojevic with 15 minutes gone to end a really promising move.

Christian Benteke - 5

There were hints that Hodgson is beginning to drill into the team exactly how to get the ball to Benteke to make the most of him and he did seem to show glimpses of his ability to hold the ball up well while players came in to help him out. There seemed to be a strong partnership with Loftus-Cheek developing, although yet again he did not seem to find himself getting many chances to put the ball in the net. What’s worse, he got injured at 3-0 down and, apparently, has ligament damage. Was replaced by Bakary Sako (5) with 20 minutes to go, who had little chance to show much of what he is worth.