This weekend Palace play host to Manchester City so we had a chat with Dan Burke from Typical City to find out all things City heading into the exciting match up.
Q. What were your hopes and dreams for the new season before a ball was kicked?
Well, nowadays we go into every season hopeful that City will end up winning the league title at the end of it and a season can no longer really be considered a successful one unless that happens.
Winning the Champions League would obviously be amazing but, despite our recent defeat of Barcelona, it still feels like we aren’t quite ready for that yet. I’ll be absolutely thrilled if we win the Premier League again this year but it is Pep Guardiola’s first season in England and the league is shaping up to be one of the most competitive we’ve ever seen so I won’t be too distraught if it doesn’t happen.
Q. Was it a successful transfer window for the club or are there areas that still need improving?
I think it has to be considered an overall success. In John Stones and Leroy Sane we signed two players who have a lot to offer now but will have even more to offer in the future. Ilkay Gundogan and Nolito are both shaping up to be fantastic buys and both were relatively inexpensive in today’s market, and Brazilian wonderkid Gabriel Jesus will give us another option up front when he joins up with the squad in January. A lot of City fans (Joe Hart loyalists, mainly) haven’t really warmed to Claudio Bravo yet but I’m a big fan of his and I think, in time, he’ll come good.
Apparently Guardiola wanted ten new signings in the summer so he might’ve been a little disappointed that we weren’t able to pull that off, especially as we were snubbed by Atletico Bilbao’s Aymeric Laporte who was reportedly one of his main targets.
The full back department of our squad has been neglected for several seasons now and it was a real surprise nothing was done about it in the summer. All four of the senior players we’ve got for those positions are the wrong side of thirty and I suspect the next order of business will be to inject some younger blood into that area.
Q. How has Pep Guardiola settled in at the Etihad and is he the right man for the job?
Put it this way, if you’d asked me at the start of the season whether I’d be happy with us being two points off the top of the table after eleven games, I would have said an unequivocal “yes” and I think Guardiola is absolutely the right man for the job.
Given that the way he likes his teams to play is quite different to what we’re used to in the Premier League, most of us anticipated that it would perhaps take a little bit of time for him to settle in and get used to his new surroundings and him winning his first ten matches in charge of the club therefore came as an incredibly pleasant surprise. We looked unstoppable during that period and wiping the floor with Jose Mourinho’s Manchester United at Old Trafford was a particular highlight.
Of course, our more recent form (two wins in our last eight) has been a stark reminder that Guardiola is only a mere mortal after all but it’s far from a disastrous situation and I have absolutely no doubt that we’ll be back on track soon enough.
Guardiola has always maintained that his team will be better in his third season than they are in his first and that makes me very excited indeed.
Q. Was it a little harsh on Manuel Pellegrini or had he taken the club as far as he could?
No, I don’t think it was harsh at all. I’ve got a lot of time for Pellegrini, both as a man and as a manager, and I’ll always remember the football we played en route to winning the title in his first season at City with great fondness. Unfortunately though, his second and third seasons were well below par considering the players he had at his disposal and were it not for the fact the club were clearly waiting on Guardiola’s availability, I think he might well have been sacked at the end of season two and I don’t think he could have had too many complaints about that.
From the outside looking in, it might have looked like the rug had been pulled from under Pellegrini when it was announced back in February that Guardiola would be replacing him at the end of the season but I think he was aware that was always going to be the case and I think, if he’s honest, he’d agree that he’d taken the club as far as he could.
He’s managing in China now which I think says quite a lot about the job he did at City.
Q. What are your thoughts on the new rule changes for this season?
We were the lucky beneficiaries of the FA’s “new directive” regarding grappling in the box when we were awarded two penalties at Stoke in our second game of the season and that change seems to have had the desired effect as, since then, I can’t recall seeing anything like the number of instances of shirt-pulling and the like that we’d become accustomed to in the Premier League over the years.
I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to only one player taking the kick off though. I realise there’s no logical reason for the ball to have to move forward from a kick off and therefore there’s no need to have two players involved, but I still think it looks weird.
Q. Even though Leicester City managed it last season, it is looking increasingly difficult for an un-fancied team to break into the top six this season but if you were to pick one, who would it be?
That’s a really tough question, especially since the current top six teams in the table are probably the best and wealthiest six in the league.
I was impressed with Southampton when they drew at our place recently and Everton are a good side too, but I think it’s going to require one of what I will call the ‘Big Six’ to have an off season for either of them to finish higher than seventh and I’m afraid I can’t see that happening this season.
Q. Perhaps you could share your views on Palace as a club, how we did last season and our start to this season?
I like Palace and I was really glad to see you overcome the financial peril which threatened your existence as a club a few years ago. I’ll also always be forever grateful for ‘Crystanbul’.
You’ve got some decent players, especially this season, but it doesn’t seem like an awful lot has changed in terms of your fortunes on the pitch since last season and, to the untrained eye at least, it looks a lot like Alan Pardew has reached that point where his team’s stuck in a rut and he has no idea how to get them out of it.
I’m not the biggest Pardew fan to be honest, and I fear you could find yourselves threatened with relegation if he’s still your manager come the business end of the season.
Q. Name one player from each team that the opposition should be concerned about?
It’s becoming increasingly obvious that Kevin De Bruyne is our best player so I’d be worried about him if I were you. He’s having a brilliant season and before the international break, Middlesbrough were defending valiantly against us until he helped break the deadlock with one of the finest passes I’ve seen this season. It sometimes seems like there’s nothing he can’t do.
In terms of the Palace player I’m most worried about, I’d have to say Christian Benteke. I know he can be a bit hit and miss but he’s absolutely lethal when he’s on his game and defensively, we’ve struggled a bit this season against players with a strong aerial presence and I fear he could cause John Stones a few problems when they come up against each other this weekend.
Q. Prediction?
I’m anticipating a really tough game but I’m hopeful City will win 3-1.
Q. Please tell us a little more about your fan group and any projects you are working on.
Typical City is a blog written by passionate and articulate City fans, for passionate and articulate City fans. Click on our logo below to take a look at our website. You can get in touch with us on Twitter and there are a few of our writers also regularly contribute to the Blue Moon Podcast.
