Manchester City host Crystal Palace in the English Premier League on Saturday evening
City need a result against the Eagles and will be looking to cement their position in the UEFA Champions League qualifying spots – especially as at least one of their fellow top four rivals will definitely drop points on Sunday when Manchester United face Arsenal on Sunday.
Palace are currently safe from the drop zone but are only 6 points ahead of relegation rivals Swansea City, who have been showing signs of turning around their form drastically with 3 games to go so the Eagles will also need to be at their best against the Sky Blues.
Palace have won two of their last 5 games, having drawn one and lost the other two but they have registered some impressive wins over Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool over the last few weeks and will be looking to replicate that form at the Etihad.
City are missing several key players for this match and speaking before the match, Pep Guardiola confirmed that Sergio Aguero and John Stones would be unavailable, while also admitting that he was sweating on the fitness of David Silva.
“No [Aguero is not fit],” Guardiola said. “Hopefully next one but this game no. Yesterday was the first training session [Silva completed since injury]. The action from the semi-final in the FA Cup, he is still not perfect. Claudio out until next season and John maybe in the next games [he will return].”
“It is still in our hands,” he said. “We will see if we can make a step forward and qualify. If we win all four games, we will definitely be in the Champions League, maybe in the third position. It depends on us. Our home games were not perfect in the season and we have to change it if we want to play in Europe next season.”
Meanwhile, Crystal Palace might have to deal with the absence of Andros Townsend, who is an injury doubt after suffering what manager Sam Allardyce described as a ‘twinge’ in his Achilles during training on Friday.
Townsend will face a late test to see if he is fit for the match and should he miss out, he will join Yohan Cabaye (knock), Mamadou Sakho (knee), James Tomkins (leg) and Scott Dann (knee) as key absentees for the match.