Manchester City arrive at their midweek home fixture with Crystal Palace in a simple but brutal position: they must win their remaining three games and hope Arsenal drop points in either of their last two fixtures if City are to clinch the title. With that pressure, it was notable when Erling Haaland did not start against Palace.<\/p>\n
The omission is not injury related. It appears to be a precautionary move by Pep Guardiola to conserve his leading striker ahead of the 2025\u201326 FA Cup final against Chelsea on Saturday at Wembley. Haaland came into the Palace game having contributed a goal and an assist in City\u2019s 3\u20130 win over Brentford at the weekend, and Guardiola is likely to call on him from the bench if the need arises.<\/p>\n
Guardiola made other unexpected selection choices. Rayan Cherki and J\u00e9r\u00e9my Doku, both regular attacking options, were also on the bench. More strikingly, Rodri and Nico O\u2019Reilly were not included in the squad selected for Oliver Glasner\u2019s side.<\/p>\n
The consequences are clear. Anything but a win on Wednesday would hand Arsenal the chance to become Premier League champions should they beat Burnley next Monday. Guardiola\u2019s rotation is therefore a calculated gamble.<\/p>\n
Omar Marmoush, who scored his first goal for City since early March at the weekend, replaces Haaland in the starting XI. Phil Foden and Savinho are given starting places, with Antoine Semenyo completing the attack. For the first time since Jan. 4, Croatia international Jo\u0161ko Gvardiol is back and will start at left back. Summer signing Rayan A\u00eft-Nouri will fill in for O\u2019Reilly and push up higher on the field at left winger.<\/p>\n
Guardiola\u2019s decisions risk undermining City\u2019s immediate objective, but the manager is relying on squad depth as he balances Premier League imperatives against the FA Cup final. The selection is a clear signal of priorities and of the fine margins at play as the season reaches its climax.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Haaland rested for FA Cup final; Marmoush starts as Guardiola reshuffles ahead of Palace clash. Wed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13782,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[465,1056,172],"tags":[1637,1305,1304],"class_list":["post-13783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crystal-palace","category-man-city","category-epl","tag-assists","tag-bench-selection","tag-benching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}