Crystal Palace Beat Manchester City 2-0 At The Etihad, Wilfried Zaha And Team Spoil Guardiola's 200th Match Celebration

Crystal Palace beat Manchester City 2-0. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Crystal Palace spoiled celebrations for Pep Guardiola's 200th game with Manchester City by beating the reigning Premier League champions 2-0 at home to the Etihad Stadium in matchday ten, Saturday 30 October.

Reporting from Antara, Wilfried Zaha gave Palace a quick lead early in the match before The Citizens were forced to play with ten players due to Aymeric Laporte's red card at the end of the first half.

The visitors took advantage of the unequal situation to complete their victory through Conor Gallagher's goal at the end of the match, after City's goal from Gabriel Jesus was ruled out by VAR.

Despite the defeat, City remains third in the table with 20 points, but they are now five points behind leaders Chelsea, who at the same time won in another match.

Meanwhile Palace, who returned to winning ways after five games without a win, moved up to 13th with 12 points, according to the Premier League's official website.

Despite starting the game with a deep defense, Palace managed to steal the lead in the sixth minute through Zaha's goal.

Starting with Gallagher's success in stealing possession from Laporte, he passed the ball to Zaha. Zaha then worked a one-two with Gallagher to get past Ruben Dias before finishing with a shot that nestled into the corner of City's far post.

City's efforts to retaliate were fruitless and they instead had to lose Laporte in the second minute of first-half injury time after the Spanish defender failed to clear the ball and instead brought down Zaha, who was immediately shown a red card from referee Andre Marriner. Marriner's decision was initially reviewed by VAR, before it was actually endorsed.

In the second half, with only ten players City was forced to apply a 3-5-1 scheme to thicken their midfield.

The result, in the 60th minute Jesus stood free at the far post to complete Phil Foden's pass into the Palace goal. However, City's players' celebration was soon over as VAR ruled out the goal for offside.

Slowly but surely the "10 vs 11" situation was felt by City players, especially Palace chose to continue to rely on counterattacks.

Palace's victory was completed by Gallagher in the 88th minute, who cleverly finished off Michael Olise's cross to beat goalkeeper Ederson Moraes.

The two teams will play their respective matches on Saturday 6 November next week, when Palace hosts Wolverhampton at Selhurst Park, while City takes on the Manchester derby against Manchester United at Old Trafford.

Three days earlier, City would first host Club Brugge in the Champions League at the Etihad.