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Guardiola fumes as Man City drop more points in title race

Pep Guardiola wasn’t happy with the officials after his Man City side drew 2-2 with Crystal Palace.

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Pep Guardiola was left fuming as Manchester City suffered yet another blow in this season’s Premier League title race after drawing 2-2 with Crystal Palace.

With the Merseyside derby clash between Everton and Liverpool postponed earlier in the day because of Storm Darragh, Guardiola’s side had the opportunity to close the gap on the league leaders to six points - albeit having played a game more.

But despite equalising twice at Selhurst Park, the reigning champions couldn’t find a winner as their hopes of doing so were hit when Rico Lewis was sent-off for two bookable offences in the closing stages.

Perhaps more worryingly for Guardiola, City remain without a clean sheet away on the road in any competition since the beginning of October after falling behind as early as the fourth minute when Daniel Munoz netted for the second successive home game.

Latching on to a fine pass from Will Hughes, the Colombia international continued his forward run and smashed the ball past Stefan Ortega to give the Eagles the perfect start.

On the half hour mark Palace ought to have doubled their lead following fine work down the right-hand side. But as the ball was played into Jean-Philippe Mateta, he unselfishly laid it off to Ismaila Sarr who then saw his effort blocked by Ruben Dias.

Moments later, the hosts were made to rue that missed opportunity as against the run of play, City equalised as Haaland rose highest to head home Matheus Nunes’ cross.

It was a case of roles reversed in the second half as Palace re-took the lead at a time where the visitors were on top. Nonetheless Maxence Lacroix took full advantage of some really slack marking to head home his first goal since joining the club in the summer transfer window.

Lewis responded for City with a terrific finish but any hopes the visitors had of leaving the capital with all three points were ended when the England international was dismissed, though replays showed it was a rather harsh decision.

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