Crystal Palace v Man City predictions: Expect workmanlike showing from City

Free football tips, best bets and analysis for Crystal Palace v Manchester City in the Premier League on Saturday.

Where to watch

Sky Sports Premier League & Main Event, 12.30pm Saturday

Best bet

Manchester City & under 3.5 goals
2pts 21-20 Betfred, BoyleSports

Raheem Sterling first goalscorer
1pt 5-1 Betfred

Team news

Crystal Palace
Centre-backs Mamadou Sakho, James Tomkins and Gary Cahill are close to being fit. James McCarthy should be okay.

Manchester City
John Stones is suspended.

Match preview

A Manchester City win and a bit of help from the team they are succeeding as champions will see Pep Guardiola's men seal the Premier League deal this weekend – but they may have to earn their victory at Selhurst Park.

City will be 13 points clear of Manchester United if they can triumph over Crystal Palace in south London and that will be enough to reclaim the trophy if the Red Devils lose at home to Liverpool 24 hours later.

Should the latter not happen it's no big deal for Pep Guardiola. It's surely only a matter of time before they add Premier League glory to the League Cup they banked last weekend.

But it's the third part of the treble - their first Champions League success which is going to be the trickiest to secure and that has a huge bearing on this fixture.

City have just six days between their two Champions League showdowns with Paris Saint-Germain and, whatever the prices say, that semi-final could still be on a knife-edge.

This trip to Palace comes less than three days after their utterly gripping 2-1 win in Paris and they go again against Mauricio Pochettino's wounded beast on Tuesday.

As this season has gone on and the closer City have come to realising their European dream, it's become clear that, even in such a world-class squad, there is a first team and then there are the others.

And it will be many of the others taking to the pitch at Selhurst Park. Those others are good – including players of the calibre of Raheem Sterling, Aymeric Laporte, Fernandinho.

And the side Guardiola will send out should be more than good enough to see off Palace, a side who boast half as many goals and points as the champs-elect. They also boast a pretty dire record against this season's top eight, with no wins in 13 since a memorable triumph at Old Trafford in September.

That said, they looked pretty solid at Leicester for 45 minutes last time out, Roy Hodgson having decided on a more fluid 4-5-1/4-3-3 set up with Luka Milivojevic sitting deeper than usual, Ebe Eze more as a number ten and Wilf Zaha back on a flank.

And even though their season fizzled out a while ago, Palace have kept three clean sheets in their last four games so it's clear their wily old gaffer can still instil some organisational nous into the ranks.

And they'll need to be more disciplined than ever against City, even if it isn't City's strongest line-up.

None of City's last 11 matches has produced more than three goals and they have won nine of them. Sterling, a likely starter, has scored six goals in his last seven appearances against Palace and could do with impressing his manager.

Key stat

Since winning at Manchester Utd in September, Palace have conceded 35 goals in 13 games against top-eight sides.

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