We look ahead to Saturday’s FA Cup final at Wembley between Crystal Palace and Manchester City with our Opta supercomputer prediction and preview. Can the Eagles upset the odds to win the FA Cup for the first time?
Crystal Palace vs Manchester City Stats: The Key Insights
Manchester City are the favourites for the 2024-25 FA Cup, winning this match inside 90 minutes in 52.5% of simulations. Crystal Palace are competing in their third FA Cup final, losing to Manchester United in both 1990 and 2016. Pep Guardiola could become the second manager to win both major English domestic competitions three or more times after Alex Ferguson (5x FA Cup, 4x League Cup).Winning the FA Cup would mean something entirely different for Crystal Palace and Manchester City.
For Palace, it would be a reward for years of smart recruitment and careful planning under the stewardship of chairman Steve Parish, who saved the club from potential liquidation in 2010 when they were fighting to stay in the Championship.
For City, it would be a chance to salvage some dignity from a campaign that can safely be regarded as their worst during the Pep Guardiola era, and a harbinger nonetheless for their desire to compete on all fronts once again next season.
Relegation from the Premier League is a real possibility for at least 10 teams every year, and Crystal Palace have flirted with that eventuality on multiple occasions during their current run of 12 uninterrupted seasons as a top-flight club, but under manager Oliver Glasner a place in Europe suddenly feels more likely than a battle with relegation. Their place in this final can largely be attributed to the Austrian’s impact.
Under the control of sporting director Dougie Freedman, the club have become synonymous with sharp transfer business, recruiting from the Championship to platform the likes of Eberechi Eze, Adam Wharton and Ismaïla Sarr, while utilising shrewd European scouting to bring in Jean-Philippe Mateta, Daniel Muñoz and Maxence Lacroix for modest fees.
But success can be bittersweet, and there is an understanding that if any of these players perform a little too well, they will have the opportunity to ply their trade elsewhere if the club are presented with an adequate proposal, as we have seen with Aaron Wan-Bissaka and more recently with Michael Olise.
Their opponents for this game, Man City, are one of few clubs that can afford to present Palace with offers of that magnitude, and Eze and Wharton have already been linked to the blue side of Manchester in recent months.
It is permissible for Palace to lose this final – for City it is not. While Champions League qualification is now the main goal for the season, a successive FA Cup final defeat would be a severe gut-punch to Guardiola and his squad, and could have untold effects on their performances in their final two league matches against Bournemouth and Fulham.
This could be the club’s first season without a trophy since 2016-17, which was Guardiola’s first campaign at the club. To date, it is the only season the Spaniard has failed to win a trophy in his managerial career.
City looked to have found a solid run of form of late, with a run of five successive victories in all competitions, which started with a 5-2 defeat of Palace at the Etihad Stadium last month.
Alas, many of this season’s problems were laid bare last weekend as they failed to beat nor score against a Southampton side who will go down as one of the worst Premier League teams of all time.
Palace meanwhile have course-corrected after conceding 10 goals in the space of two games in April and are now unbeaten in five games despite facing meaningful opposition in the form of Bournemouth, Arsenal, Aston Villa, Nottingham Forest and Spurs.
The two clubs have vastly differing fortunes in the FA Cup; City have won this competition seven times, while an eighth success would see them trail only Arsenal (14) and Manchester United (13) for total FA Cup trophies.
Palace on the other hand are yet to win this competition, and, having lost to Man Utd in both 1990 and 2016, are one of four clubs to have competed in the final twice without ever lifting the trophy, along with Queen’s Park, Birmingham City and Watford.
While these sides have differing playstyles, they both like to entertain, and this fixture has been one to look out for in recent times, with both teams scoring at least two goals in each of the last four meetings.
Derby vs Newcastle, between 1975 and 1977, was the last fixture between two top-flight clubs to see both teams score at least twice in five games running.
Eze was on the scoresheet in the most recent encounter between these sides, when City came from behind to put five past Palace to extend their unbeaten run against the Eagles to seven games. The England international is in fine fettle at the minute, scoring in each of his last four matches, including a brace last time out against Spurs.
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For City, matters have been complicated by the draw at Southampton, a game in which Erling Haaland returned from a six-week injury lay-off and played like it had been even longer. Haaland has failed to score in any of his five appearances for City at Wembley, his most games without scoring at a specific venue for the club.
It feels only right that Nico O’Reilly should return to the starting lineup given the key role he has played in the team reaching this stage of the competition. The young midfielder, playing out of position at left-back, has the most goal involvements of any Premier League player in the FA Cup this season (3 goals, 2 assists).
For the departing Kevin De Bruyne, who has been directly involved in four goals in his previous three FA Cup finals, this is an opportunity to rubber stamp an already incomparable resumé. The Belgian has won 14 major trophies with City and depending on your views of the FIFA Club World Cup, this could be his final chance to add to that tally.
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1 day ago Oliver HopkinsCrystal Palace vs Manchester City Head-to-Head
Manchester City have won their last three FA Cup meetings with Crystal Palace by an aggregate score of 18-4. The most recent meeting was in the fourth round in 2016-17, with the Citizens winning 3-0 at Selhurst Park.
City are unbeaten in their last seven meetings with Crystal Palace in all competitions (W4 D3), since a 2-0 loss in the Premier League in October 2021. They came back from a two-goal deficit to defeat Palace 5-2 when these sides last met.
Both teams have scored 2+ goals in each of the last four meetings between Crystal Palace and Man City, with two 2-2 draws, and 4-2 and 5-2 victories for the Citizens. The last time two top-flight clubs both scored two or more goals in five consecutive meetings was between 1975 and 1977 (Derby vs Newcastle).
Crystal Palace vs Manchester City Prediction
Unsurprisingly, Manchester City are favoured by the Opta supercomputer, winning the match inside 90 minutes across 52.5% of simulations.
Crystal Palace come out on top without needing extra-time or penalties in 24.4% of data-led sims, while the chance of a draw sits at 23.2%.
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams. This score is on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off at Wembley Stadium on Saturday, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
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