Crystal Palace ends Man City’s win streak
After 18 victories in a row league leaders narrowly escape with 0-0 draw
LONDON— After a record run of18 successive wins in the Premier League, only a penalty save in stoppage time enabled Manchester City to escape its first defeat of the season Sunday at 17th-place Crystal Palace.
City, the runaway Premier League leader, needed the late intervention of goalkeeper Ederson’s trailing leg to keep out Luka Milivojevic’s penalty kick and secure a 0-0 draw against a plucky Palace.
The result kept City unbeaten in league play (19-0-2) entering 2018, but there was little sense of relief for City’s manager, Pep Guardiola, after two key players left the match with potentially serious injuries.
After watching young striker Gabriel Jesus leave the field in tears — the result of an awkward midfield collision in the first half — Guardiola then had to endure the sight of City’s most influential player this season, Kevin De Bruyne, being carried off the field on a stretcher only minutes after Ederson’s penalty save.
As City broke out on a counterattack off Milivojevic’s saved penalty, De Bruyne was chopped down by a nasty tackle from behind by Palace midfielder Jason Puncheon. Referee Jonathan Moss gave only a yellow card for the foul, which led City’s medical staff to wrap De Bruyne’s leg in a brace even before he was placed on the stretcher. In his postmatch news conference, Guardiola made multiple calls for more stringent refereeing in the English game to prioritize player safety.
“I admire the physicality of the Premier League, but the referees have to protect the players,” Guardiola said. “It’s the only thing I ask.”
He added: “Contact is allowed here more than any other country. It’s OK. But there are limits.”
As Guardiola went on to note, City was fortunate on Dec. 16 when De Bruyne absorbed a similarly crunching tackle in a 4-1victory over Tottenham. Guardiola said Sunday it was too soon to know how serious De Bruyne’s injury was, but he estimated that Jesus most likely would be sidelined “more than a month.”
Despite failing to score for the first time in 21league games, City remains well ahead of the pack. Its 14-point lead over second-place Chelsea is the largest at the turn of the year in Premier League history, and City also sees itself as a serious contender to win the UEFA Champions League for the first time.
Palace, which lost its first seven league matches this season without scoring a goal, has only recently climbed out of the relegation zone. Palace manager Roy Hodgson, after his side had thrown such a scare into the most in-form team in the world, thus bristled at post-match questions about whether Wilfried Zaha had gone down too easily in the box to win the hosts’ penalty in the 92nd minute.
“You’ll have to allow me, to some extent, to at least have a few minutes of enjoyment,” Hodgson said of the manic draw, which at one point in stoppage time saw Guardiola unexpectedly sit down beside him in the Palace dugout to discuss all they had seen.