Guardiola thumbs up Zaha, Eze and Olise
Spanish manager Pep Guardiola was delighted to see Manchester City keep a clean sheet during Saturday’s 1-0 Premier League win over Crystal Palace.
Guardiola also praised the side fielding Wilfried Zaha and the Nigeria-born duo of Ebere Eze and Michael Olise.
For the third top-flight game in a row, Palace failed to register a single shot on target.
A remarkable statistic really, when you consider that Patrick Vieira has three attackers, most Premier League managers would snap your hand off for.
Zaha scored 15 goals last term but has just six this. 21-year-old Olise remains a work in progress. Eze, meanwhile, no longer appears to have an obvious place in Vieira’s XI, the former Man City U23 coach waiting until the final 10 minutes to bring him off the bench on Saturday night.
Guardiola, however, was still relieved to come through a punishing encounter against their sometime ‘bogey team’ with three points and a clean sheet.
“My experience is that, every time we come here, it has been very tough,” sighs the former Barcelona boss. “We always struggle because we want to score more goals.
“They have weapons. Zaha is there, Olise, Eze; they are incredible strikers, and they have incredible threat. They have composure. Great attacking players.”
The Premier League champions were forced to wait until midway through the second half to score the only goal of the game; the irrepressible Erling Haaland rattling home a typically nerveless penalty kick.
The tightest of scorelines does not reflect the lopsided nature of proceedings at Selhurst Park, however. Guardiola’s visitors mustered 14 shots while monopolising nearly 70 per cent of the possession.
“Everything pleased me,” Guardiola adds. “(But) we missed the counter-attack a bit. It is not easy, they defend with six players in the box and Erling Haaland had two men marking him. It was a question of patience.
“Teams defend deep against Haaland. Julian (Alvarez) is so important and we need him. We needed him in the middle. Gundo (Ilkay Gundogan) is an exceptional player and got the penalty, and Haaland did the rest.”
