Manchester City must dominate in two key areas of the field to come up trumps in Saturday’s FA Cup final with Crystal Palace at Wembley, former Sky Blues defender Richard Dunne believes.
Citizens boss Pep Guardiola could emulate the legendary Sir Alex Ferguson with victory in the English capital, as he bids to become just the second manager to win the FA Cup and EFL Cup on at least three separate occasions.
However, the recently-dethroned 2023-24 Premier League champions can take nothing for granted against Oliver Glasner‘s soaring Eagles, who impressively took down Aston Villa 3-0 in the semi-finals and boast a plethora of highly-rated individual talents.
Speaking exclusively to Sports Mole, Dunne – who made over 350 appearances for Man City during his playing heyday – highlighted the flanks and the centre of the park as two areas where Saturday’s bout could be won and lost.
“For City it just depends who plays. Palace are one of those teams that if they turn up on the day, they can cause anyone trouble,” the 45-year-old said.
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“They’ve beaten City a few times over the last few years, even when City were flying. The likes of [Adam] Wharton. [Eberechi] Eze, [Jean-Philippe] Mateta, players that are real threat and real high-quality players.
“If City play as they have been playing, the full-backs become important for them. [Nico] O’Reilly has been fantastic since he’s come into the first team, he’s done really well. And then it’s just about control in that midfield area.
“[Mateo] Kovacic or [Ilkay] Gundogan or [Nico] Gonzalez, whoever plays in those defensive midfield roles, you have to be careful because Palace are a side that can go from defence to attack really, really quickly.”
The 2024-25 FA Cup final takes place just a few weeks after Man City roared to a 5-2 triumph over Palace in the Premier League, although they fell 2-0 down on the day before an extraordinary Etihad turnaround.
That result extended Man City’s unbeaten run over the London outfit to seven matches, last suffering defeat to the Eagles in the 2021-22 Premier League season, a surprise 2-0 home defeat.
Guardiola echoes Dunne sentiments ahead of FA Cup final
Despite the Sky Blues’ positive sequence against Crystal Palace, Guardiola was also keen to highlight the individual brilliance at Glasner’s disposal in his pre-game press conference on Friday.
“Mateta is strong on long balls and after that I would say their quality with Eze is obvious,” the Catalan coach told the press. “Sarr in the semi-final punished Villa a lot.
“[Adam] Wharton is a really good holding midfielder who links well. It is a final. If we played against Villa it would be the same.”
Wharton was a slight injury doubt for the final due to ankle concern, but Glasner confirmed in his own press conference that the highly-rated England midfielder is fit and raring to go.
Richard Dunne was speaking to Sports Mole on behalf of talkSPORT BET.
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