Palace have won one of their last ten against City, and that one was the FA Cup final
Pierre Sage’s first home league game kicks off at 12.30am IST on Saturday, with Marc Guehi back at Selhurst Park in a Manchester City shirt and Enzo Maresca still waiting on a midfielder.
Aug 28, 2026
In their last ten meetings with Manchester City, Crystal Palace have won once. That once was the 2025 FA Cup final, which is the kind of exception that makes the rule easier to live with. They meet again at Selhurst Park on Friday night, 12.30am IST on Saturday for anyone watching in India, in the second round of Premier League fixtures.
Pierre Sage’s first home league night
Palace have a new manager. Pierre Sage took over from Oliver Glasner, who left having won the FA Cup and the Conference League, which is roughly the hardest act to follow available in English football outside the top four.
Sage’s first league game brought a 2-0 defeat at Everton, with Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall scoring before the break and Thierno Barry adding a second early in the second half. It was not a disaster and it was not encouraging either. Palace did not score, which has been the theme of most of their difficult periods under any manager.
They will be without Ismaila Sarr, who is training on his own with a groin problem, and centre-back Chadi Riad, who has a knee injury. Dwight McNeil and Eddie Nketiah are expected to lead the attack.
Marc Guehi comes back, and he is scoring now
The subplot everyone at Selhurst Park will be watching is Marc Guehi, who captained this club and now plays for the opposition. He joined City in January for an initial 20 million pounds on a deal that runs to 2031, and last Sunday he headed in the equaliser against Bournemouth that started City’s comeback.
City were losing that game. Marcus Tavernier put Bournemouth ahead in the 26th minute and it stayed that way until the 84th, when Guehi met a Rayan Cherki cross. Josko Gvardiol then won it in the first minute of stoppage time, also from Cherki, and only after VAR overturned an offside flag. Enzo Maresca’s first Premier League match in charge of City finished 2-1 and could easily have finished 1-0 the other way.
City’s midfield is still being assembled
Maresca is working with a squad that is not finished. City sold four midfielders this summer and have brought in Elliot Anderson and Ayyoub Bouaddi, and talks over Enzo Fernandez were described this week as close. The window shuts on 1 September, so there are four days left to change the shape of the team.
Anderson took a knock against Bournemouth but has been passed fit for Friday, sparing a side already thin in that area an extra injury worry. Jeremy Doku is out with a calf injury. Phil Foden, Nico O’Reilly and Antoine Semenyo are expected to play around Erling Haaland.
What Palace need to do
Palace’s route into this game is the one that worked at Wembley in 2025: defend deep, stay compact, and take the one chance that arrives. It is not thrilling and it is not a plan you can rely on twice, but Selhurst Park on a Friday night is about as awkward a fixture as City get in August, and a City midfield still waiting on a signing is a City midfield that can be pressed.
City should win it. They have more of everything, Haaland is Haaland, and Palace have not scored in the league this season. But a team that needed a 91st-minute VAR decision to beat Bournemouth is not one you would bet the house on, and Sage will have watched that match with some interest.