Manchester City lost 1-0 to Crystal Palace in the FA Cup final at Wembley Stadium last Saturday, May 17, to finish the season without a trophy.
Pep Guardiola’s men were the dominant side in the match by far but failed to break a resolute Crystal Palace defence.
Palace, however, scored the all-important goal through a counter-attack to take home their first-ever FA Cup.
Manchester City Had Complete Dominance in the Match
The Cityzens finished the match with 79% ball possession and had 23 shots against Palace’s seven.
However, their inability to finish inside the final third meant that scoring a goal was enough for Palace to secure a win.
Manchester City started the match with a 4-2-3-1 formation, with Bernardo Silva and Kevin De Bruyne playing as the double-pivot. That meant that City did not have a single specialist defensive midfielder in the starting line-up.
The Cityzens’ attacks in the first half flowed primarily through Savinho on the right flank. The Brazilian winger tried desperately, as did Jeremy Doku on the opposite flank, but did not manage to break through the Palace defence often to get into the penalty box.
De Bruyne started attacking through the middle in the second half only and managed to play a couple of delectable through passes, both of which should have resulted in goals.
However, Nico O’Reilly and Claudio Echeverri missed two golden chances to score for their team. The Belgian playmaker was still one of the better players on the pitch.
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No Natural Full-Backs
Another glaring weakness in the Manchester City line-up that became evident was the lack of a proper full-back. O’Reilly and Manuel Akanji played as the left and right-backs, respectively, but neither of them is a proper full-back.
The absence of Matheus Nunes mattered a lot for City on Saturday.
Neither O’Reilly nor Akanji looked comfortable crossing the ball, despite often being in a position to do so. It, therefore, meant that there was no regular delivery of balls to Erling Haaland, who looked lost among the Crystal Palace defenders inside the penalty box.
Bernardo Silva earned a penalty for his side in the first half, having a brilliant one-two before that.
However, Omar Marmoush’s spot-kick was saved by the Crystal Palace goalkeeper to prevent the Cityzens from restoring parity. Quite surprisingly, Erling Haaland did not take the penalty.
In the end, it was the same old story of teams playing ultra-defensive football against Manchester City by crowding their defensive third.
The fact that City are frequently not being able to break through them is a matter of concern for Guardiola. In order to win a title next season, he will have to rethink his strategy somewhat.
Main Photo
Credit: IMAGO / Sportimage
Recording Date: 17.05.2025