Crystal Palace 1-4 Manchester City: Haaland and Cherki both score twice at Selhurst Park

By Jack Shaw · Selhurst Park, London · Published: 23:30 BST

• Erling Haaland and Rayan Cherki both scored twice as Manchester City won 4-1 at Selhurst Park on Friday night.
• Crystal Palace remain without a point after three matches under Pierre Sage, who said his side “lost hope” once City went 3-1 up.
• Enzo Maresca admitted City were pressing “in the wrong way” for the opening 10 minutes before taking control.

Crystal Palace 1-4 Manchester City was decided by two players in ruthless form: Erling Haaland grabbed an emphatic double and Rayan Cherki matched him, the Frenchman’s first a prod with the outside of his left foot at the end of a mazy run. Palace were in the contest until City’s creative heartbeat took it away from them after the interval.

Crystal Palace 1-4 Manchester City: how the night turned

Palace, who had shown flickers of encouragement in Pierre Sage’s first two matches in charge, went in still competitive. The second half belonged entirely to the visitors. Cherki, in his second season in England after arriving from Lyon, scored twice a week on from a substitute appearance against Bournemouth in which he set up two goals to spark a comeback from 1-0 down. Phil Foden also impressed, and Haaland extended a personal record at a ground where he has never failed to score.

Sage’s verdict was blunt: his players, he said, lost hope once the third goal went in. For the full timeline of the night and the reaction from a Palace perspective, follow the rolling coverage at Read Crystal Palace.

Expert angle: Maresca’s City have found the release valve

The interesting thing here is not the scoreline — it is who Enzo Maresca is choosing not to control. This is a coach defined by obsessive positional discipline, and Cherki is the least positional footballer at the club. Maresca has decided to let him roam, and the pay-off is a City side that no longer looks like it is waiting for a system to produce chances.

Listen to what Maresca actually praised. Not the goals. “His performance for me was very good, not because of the two goals, but the way he worked off the ball,” he said. “He has to press. His game was complete.” That is the bargain being struck: total creative licence in exchange for total defensive effort. Cherki himself, typically, called his own first half “so shit”.

The structural question has not gone away. City are working with an incomplete midfield after the departures of Rodri and Bernardo Silva, with Ayyoub Bouaddi arriving from Lille for an eye-catching £86m. Against a Palace side yet to register a point, that gap was never going to be exposed. The real test of this post-Pep team is a midfield battle it cannot win by simply being more talented — but after the Community Shield debacle, Maresca will take a night that looked this comfortable.

Wrap-up

Three games, zero points, and a manager admitting his players stopped believing at 3-1. How much time do Palace realistically give Pierre Sage? Elsewhere in a busy week for City, read how Tottenham signed Omar Marmoush on loan from Manchester City with a £60m obligation to buy.