Patience ‘most important thing’ for Manchester City, says Phil Foden

Phil Foden says patience will be the key to picking teams off as Manchester City continue to eat away at Arsenal’s lead in the Premier League title race.

City were made to battle for their 3-0 victory against Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park on Sunday as they moved to within two points of the Gunners.

They could be top of the pile by the time Mikel Arteta’s team next play. Third-bottom West Ham visit the Etihad Stadium on Saturday, while Arsenal face a difficult trip to a resurgent Everton later that evening, with the picture at the top having already altered drastically since the London side were seven points clear in November.

Sunday’s trip to Palace threatened to be an obstacle to City’s pursuit, with Oliver Glasner’s side having sights on the top four, but after weathering early pressure the visitors took the lead just before half-time through Erling Haaland’s header before Foden settled things with a fine hit in the second half.

“The most important thing is patience,” said the England midfielder, whose excellent season personally continued in south London.

“I think we maybe tried to attack too quickly. In the second half we did a lot better. (Patience) was the key for getting the result. We had more control and more passes, that is the City way. It was a full team performance.”

Haaland got his second and the team’s third with a late penalty after substitute Savinho had been pulled down by goalkeeper Dean Henderson.

Palace ought to have taken the lead in the first half when Yeremy Pino took a shot on early and struck Gianluigi Donnarumma’s crossbar, while Adam Wharton hit a post and Eddie Nketiah brought a good stop from City’s goalkeeper.

“It’s a really difficult game,” said Foden. “We know what (Palace) are about. They make it tricky, set up well and have quality players on the break. The first half we were just trying to figure them out.

“Second half we started to hurt them more and in the end we killed the game off.”

There was further bad news for Palace as Daichi Kamada was forced off injured in the second half.

“It looks like his hamstring,” said Glasner.

“When he landed he over-stretched his knee and that means the hamstring got the full stretch because he never had any muscle injury before. It was just an incident and he can hardly walk.

“It looks pretty bad. He will have a scan (on Monday), then we will know more. I think we will lose him for a couple of weeks, but it’s a chance for other players to step up.”