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Football: Guardiola may lack Kompany for visit to Palace
MANCHESTER, United Kingdom, Dec 30, 2017 (BSS/AFP) – Pep Guardiola is
hopeful Vincent Kompany’s latest injury setback is not too serious as he
looks to continue Manchester City’s extraordinary winning run at Crystal
Palace on Sunday.
Club captain Kompany suffered his third injury of the season when he limped
off with a calf problem just 11 minutes into Wednesday’s 1-0 victory at
Newcastle United, and is a doubt for the trip to Selhurst Park.
His absence would leave Guardiola short of central defensive options once
more, although John Stones is close to recovering from the hamstring problem
sustained during the 2-0 win at Leicester City on November 18.
“He’s (Stones) not as bad as we thought,” Guardiola said.
“We think he will be ready for the next fixtures but we’ll know exactly
tomorrow (Saturday). It’s not a big issue and he can be soon ready to help
us.”
Central defensive injury concerns aside, though, life could hardly be much
better for Guardiola at present.
His team are 15 points clear at the top of the Premier League, having won
their past 18 matches in the competition.
Victory at Selhurst Park would set a new Premier League record of 12
consecutive away victories, passing the mark of 11 set by Chelsea in 2008.
It would also equal Guardiola’s personal record of 19 straight league wins,
which he set with Bayern Munich between October 2013 and March 2014.
City also look well on course to beat Chelsea’s record of 95 points in a
Premier League season.
They already have 58 points with just 20 games played; remarkably, that is
a total that City failed to achieve over an entire Premier League season at
any point before 2009-10.
– ‘Iconic Crystal Palace player’ –
MORE/MR/ 1030 hrs
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Guardiola, though, is wary of the danger that Palace, and in particular
Ivory Coast winger Wilfried Zaha, will pose.
“Always here we talk about the numbers and the records. That’s a
consequence of what we do on the pitch,” said Guardiola.
“I’m really impressed with what Zaha is able to do — when he was not on
the pitch, Crystal Palace were not able to win.
“The first nine games, Zaha was not there, when he came back in, the team
changed. He is a guy who can turn the game.”
Palace’s run of eight games without defeat came to an end with the 3-2 home
loss to Arsenal on Thursday that left them just a point above the bottom
three.
Palace manager Roy Hodgson has acknowledged he may opt to rest key players
with a view to the trip to fellow strugglers Southampton just 48 hours later.
Whether that means the manager rests Zaha remains to be seen but Hodgson
insists he will not be sold next month, despite becoming a target for a
number of leading clubs.
“I have assurances from the club owners and chairman, Steve Parish, that is
not going to happen,” said Hodgson.
“We want to keep all the players we have got and ideally want to add to the
squad in the January transfer window to strengthen even more.
“Wilfried has been absolutely excellent for us in this recent good run we
have had and of course he is the iconic Crystal Palace player having been
with us for so many years and being a local hero.”
BSS/AFP/MR/ 1030hrs