Updates from the early kick-off at the Etihad Stadium Send festive cheer to Or do it over on the Twitter @ianmccourt Follow the live scores from around Britain and Europe 12.56pm GMT 10 mins Silky Silva has loads of space on the inside right slot and plays a lovely, little weighted ball to Zabaleta. His cross is cut out for a corner. Said corner finds its way to Kolarov but there is nothing he can do with it except direct it out for a Palace goal-kick. 12.54pm GMT 8 mins City get their attack on and play some lovely intricate football on the edge of the area, channeling Barcelona as they do so. Palace close down the space they want to play in and push City back. The move comes to an end when Fernandinho sends the ball into orbit. 12.52pm GMT 12.52pm GMT 7 mins Silva handles the ball – in the opinion of the referee (it actually hit his ribs) – in the centre circle and it is a free to Palace. They send the big men up and Dann launches one long. City send it out but it only goes as far as Puncheon. He puts his foot through the ball but Silva gets in the way. 12.50pm GMT 5 mins The City crowd are whisper quiet. Is it always this bad at the Etihad? 12.50pm GMT In honour of the visit of the Eagles, it being Christmas (almost) and (probably) the John Lewis ad. There were some penguins enjoying themselves outside the Etihad. 12.49pm GMT 4 mins City get their first attack of the game. Silva picks the ball up wide on the right, near the corner of the box. He touches the ball into the path of Zabaleta who is doing his overlap thing. The full-back, on the end line, cuts the ball back for Nasri who connects well with the pass but the Frenchman screws his shot wide of Speroni’s post. 12.47pm GMT 2 mins Zabaleta goes through the back of Bolasie and Palace get an early free-kick wide on the left. That is sent into the box and soon sent out for a corner. Palace whip that over but City deal with it easily enough. 12.45pm GMT 1 min Off we go then. Palace get us started playing right to left. Off we go with the emails too. “I see the typo,” eagle-eyes James Edun. “It’s Scott Sinclair isn’t it? Didn’t he used to be some kind of striker, or at least a footballer?” 12.43pm GMT Here comes the teams, here come some naughty words in the tunnel, here comes the roar of the crowd and here comes the handshakes. City are draped in their sky blue while Crystal Palace parade about in their red and blue striped number. Least we forget, should City win by four or more today, they shall be number No1 in the league. Good for them, eh? 12.31pm GMT False nine is right. 364 - James Milners last Premier League goal came on 21st December 2013 (versus Fulham), 364 days ago. Deployed. 12.28pm GMT Spot the typo on the team-sheet time: City-Palace teamsheet 12.15pm GMT Manuel Pellegrini has opted against starting José Ángel Pozo and instead decided on what looks to be a false 9 approach. Up front, expect plenty of bobbing and weaving and ducking and diving and rotation and, eh, James Milner playing centre forward. Pellegrini has also exercised his right to ring the changes from the side that faced Leicester with Zabaleta, Demichelis, Kolarov, Fernandinho, Navas and the aforementioned Milner all coming into the team. For Palace, there is but one change with Campbell – who bagged himself some goals against City last season – coming in for the hamstrung Chamakh. Those teams in full then are as follows: Manchester City: Hart, Zabaleta, Demichelis, Mangala, Kolarov, Fernandinho, Navas, Yaya Touré, Silva, Nasri, Milner. Subs: Caballero, Boyata, Sagna, Fernando, Lampard, Ambrose, Sinclair. 11.55am GMT Ages ago, before the bad movies and the worse HBO programmes, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant did a radio show on XFM with the then (relatively) unknown radio producer, Karl Pilkington. The show had various hooks, like Rockbusters (“I was in Texas, I landed on my knees in a puddle. WH”); monkey news, (“ .... so, he’s walkin’ upright, he’s havin’ a tea in the morning, finishing the day off with brandy”); and Educating Ricky. And it is with the Educating Ricky section – the part of the show where Pilkington tried to teach Gervais an interesting fact – that this morning’s preamble is concerned. Under the headline, Get a lobe of this, Pilkington told Gervais about a girl who had been deaf for four years until one day when she was arguing with her mother. The argument got heated and the mother pushed the daughter’s head off the wall with the unexpected result that the daughter’s hearing was restored. After an awkward pause, but before mass laughter broke out, Pilkington explained that there was no explanation for what had happened. In other words, it was a miracle.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 14:12:59 +0000
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