A day for patience - City vs Crystal Palace thoughts

Today's game against Crystal Palace was a very good win, and one which told us a few things about where Manchester City are today. A few thoughts:

• Firstly the game itself. Today was definitely a day for patience. This season a clear tactical method to use against us has become clear. Sit deep and compact, pack the central area's in front of the defence and hit us on the counter-attack. The best example of how effective this can be was the home defeat to Stoke. Today, Palace attempted the same strategy. The key to defeating teams using these tactics is two things - patience and width. City used both of these very effectively. The number of passes from City (656 compared to 174 for Palace) is a clear indication of how patient they were. The influence of Zabeleta and Kolorov, who each provided an assist, shows that width was used effectively.
• City were clearly the better side, but having said that we did have some luck. At 2-0 the linesman made what can only be described as a howler of a decision in flagging for offside when Palace scored. It probably didn't change the result but at 2-1 you never know.
• I thought the experiment with Milner in the false-9 role worked okay, but nothing more than that. It's obviously only going to be used until we get one of our strikers fit again but, if we are to use it, why not use David Silva in that role? He has played there successfully for Spain.
• During the game, the BT Sport commentators made the point that there is a clear style of play that is different about Manchester City compared to other teams. It has been an ambition of the club for a while now that a clearly identifiable style of play for Manchester City becomes recognisable. Ferran Soriano has stated he wants all Manchester City teams to play in a style that makes them identifiable. Is this a sign that this long-term goal is being achieved?
• The striker injury crisis has opened a door for the EDS kids to make a mark on the first team. Although we chose not to play any of them today, I don't think that is a bad sign. Pozo has played the last few games and while he has done okay, perhaps it was right to allow him to step aside for now. If he had started to struggle it could have set back his development. He has had a taste and the experience means when his chance comes again he will be better equipped to succeed.
• It was good to see Thierry Ambrose on the bench today. Even though he didn't get on the pitch, just being involved in the first team on match day will help his development. Gary Neville made this point in an interesting article on youth development this week. Sometimes a player needs to spend some time around the first team, without playing, in order to learn and absorb what happens.

City now enter the Christmas period level on points with Chelsea, although Chelsea have a game in hand. At this stage of the season, a potential 3 point deficit is nothing. There is still everything to play for in the League.

City vs Palace - a few thoughts

A win is still a win. The title isn't won by winning 7-0 against Norwich, it's won on days like this when a team doesn't play well and still finds a way to win. A few observations on the game:

• The game can be summed up by the above photo. Palace set themselves up in a 4-5-1 formation with each line about 10 yards apart. The photo shows this perfectly. They were disciplined and went about the job very effectively. This is classic Tony Pulis tactics. At Stoke he would often set his side up like this away from home. The goal is to keep it tight and try and nick something from the game, and if they concede they still don't change from this tactic, saving themselves for another day.
• This very nearly worked for Palace and it was only thanks to some excellent saves from Joe Hart that they didn't nick something. It's good to have him not only looking back to his best, but also showing a lot of bravery.
• The game was one where we needed to show a lot of patience. We did this and will have more days like this before the end of the season. When the opposition sets themselves up this way an early goal usually means we'll go on to win comfortably. But the longer the game goes on without a goal, the harder it will feel.
• The best way to break down a defence in these circumstances is through movement off the ball and rapid ball movement. This should pull the defense about until the gaps appear. Palace were very disciplined and kept their shape which made off the ball movement difficult - there was no space to move into. The rapid ball movement wasn't helped by the selection of Javi Garcia. He was sat too deep and moves the ball too slowly for a game such as this. Far too often he was next to the centre backs with no Palace player within 20 yards. Eventually Kompany started bringing the ball out of defence but Garcia should not have spent the whole game so deep.
• Dzecko comes in for a lot of criticism from City fans. He isn't as good as Aguero or Negrado, but how many other teams have a third choice striker as good as him? I can't think of a Premier League team. He now has 50 goals for City and we can be thankful he took his one real chance on Saturday so well.