Palace boss: City loss had nothing to do with missing suspended captain Guehi
BY MITCHELL HALL
Oliver Glasner has refused to attribute his side’s poor performance to the absence of captain Marc Guehi as they fell to a 5-2 defeat at Manchester City.
Palace took a two-goal lead in the early stages of the match thanks to goals from Eberechi Eze and Chris Richards, but silly mistakes and a significant drop-off in performance levels saw the lead slip away before half-time.
There was an obvious lack of composure in defence as the Eagles scrambled to stop the goalscoring frenzy, thanks in part to the absence of centre-back Guehi, who was suspended after being sent off against Brighton last Saturday.
“I do not know if it is too easy,” said Glasner when asked if a lack of leadership from Guehi contributed to the result. “Marc played when we conceded five against Arsenal. No, that is not the reason.
“Every team misses his captain, but it was more that Chris Richards did not train for 10 days, Maxence Lacroix did not train the whole week, so everybody was not on his top level.
“We can look for many reasons, we missed the captain or this and that. When we see all the chances, and just the last goal, when we are speaking about details, we do not attack the winger, we do not double up.
“The longer the game lasted the less we could do it. We took too many wrong decisions before the second goal.
“Lacroix steps into the midfield when he does not need to step and opens the gap and then they pass in behind.
“We did not defend at our top level and that is why we did not win the game.”
