Danny Higginbotham: Crystal Palace chief Roy Hodgson finds the perfect formula to shackle free-flowing Manchester City
Danny Higginbotham reflects on a hard-fought draw for the Eagles that ended the high-flying Citizens' winning run
MANCHESTER CITY are an outstanding team.
For me, the only reason they’re not already being hailed as one of the greatest in Premier League history is because they’ve only been together for six months.
If they get that longevity, stay together for two or three years, they will get those accolades.
Pep Guardiola’s side are phenomenal. They have few, if any, weaknesses and they also have Fernandinho who shores things up to stop the counter.
There has been a lot of talk about City scoring goals but what they do off the ball is brilliant.
When they lose the ball, they hunt it down and get it right back, so you rarely get more than two touches before you are closed down.
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In an ideal world you would look to be brave and play out from the back against City but then you can lose the ball to Kevin De Bruyne, David Silva or Leroy Sane.
So if you can’t play through the press, you have to play over it.
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Crystal Palace boss Roy Hodgson got it spot-on when his side ended City’s 18-game winning run on Sunday with that 0-0 draw at Selhurst Park.
Hodgson had a gameplan and also the sort of physical players you need when you play that way.
I’ve felt all season that if any side is going to beat City, they will be from outside the top six because they do not have to change the way they play.
The top six teams will try to alter their game to counter City.
Arsenal, Chelsea and United, for example, surrendered possession but that’s not what they do for the other 36 games in the season. Their players were aware they were trying to adapt to City — and all of them lost comfortably.
But look at the sides that have actually run City close this season — Huddersfield, Southampton, West Ham, West Brom and now Crystal Palace. They are used to NOT having possession of the ball.
If you try to go toe to toe with City, like Spurs did, they will destroy you.
Yes, you need a bit of luck to hold out against them. But if Palace had scored that late penalty, then they would have won.
The way they went about things was exactly what you need to do against this City side. You need a striker you can play up to and ally that with pace to get in behind.
Palace had Christian Benteke, who was the target, while that created time for Wilfried Zaha and Andros Townsend to support him.
Of course, that means you have to drop deep and allow them on to you, sacrifice possession.
Last week Newcastle did the dropping deep but didn’t have any pace to support the ball when it was played up.
Palace did and that is the way to go, by turning it into a scrap.
They also found a way to at least diminish the influence of De Bruyne.
Jairo Riedewald has barely played but he was able to keep tight to KDB.
Even when the Belgian got away from him, Palace were still compact and able to prevent him hurting them.
Palace are set up to be a counter-attacking team and played it as an away game.
Roy got his side to sit and play on the counter and use that pace and Benteke's presence.
If you drop ridiculously deep they will eventually pick a pass.
But if you drop a little and allow the City full-backs to advance, then that leaves space in behind that you can exploit if you have pace.
That is exactly what Palace did.