Manchester City are looking to extend their record-breaking Premier League winning streak until the end of 2017 as they face Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park on New Year's Eve. The reverse fixture was quite easy for the Citizens, they won it 5-0 in September. Last season Manchester City defeated Crystal Palace in three matches out of three, 2-1 and 5-0 in the Premier League and 3-0 in the FA Cup. Manchester City have won the last seven direct matches, while Crystal Palace have not beaten them since 2015.
Crystal Palace had their eight-game unbeaten streak snapped on Wednesday as they lost 3-2 at home against Arsenal. That was their second defeat in the last eleven Premier League matches, but they only won three times during that span. The Eagles had a terrible start to the season, with seven consecutive defeats in the Premier League, but they came back to life with a 2-1 victory over defending champions Chelsea and since then they have been recording decent results overall. Connor Wickham, Damien Delaney and Mamadou Sakho remain sidelined for the home side.
Manchester City extended their Premier League winning streak to eighteen games as they defeated Newcastle 1-0 earlier this week and they also extended their lead at the top of the table to fifteen points. Complacency is probably the biggest danger for Pep Guardiola's men at this point, they have already proven to be better than all the other teams in the league so far. Benjamin Mendy remains sidelined and Vincent Kompany joins him on the sidelines, while John Stones and Fabian Delph have returned from injuries but might not be fit enough to play this weekend.
Probable line-ups:
Crystal Palace: Speroni - Fosu-Mensah, Tomkins, Dann, Schlupp - Townsend, Milivojevic, McArthur, Loftus-Cheek - Zaha, Benteke
Man City: Ederson - Walker, Mangala, Otamendi, Danilo - De Bruyne, Fernandinho, D. Silva - B. Silva, Jesus, Sane
My prediction: Manchester City to win 3-1.
Here are the odds for the match at Bet365:
Crystal Palace win - 11.00
Draw - 6.50
Man City win - 1.28
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