Selhurst Park on a Friday night was supposed to be an early-season stress test. It turned into the clearest signal yet of what Enzo Maresca’s Manchester City actually is. City won 4-1, Haaland grabbed a brace, and every highlight reel will lead with him. The player who genuinely made my jaw drop was Rayan Cherki, because two games into the post-Pep era this team already has a personality, and it’s louder and far less predictable than anything Guardiola left behind.
The five minutes that broke Palace open
For an hour this was a proper contest. Haaland headed City in front on 17 minutes from Antoine Semenyo’s cross, Palace competed hard, and the teams went in at 1-0. Then came the spell that settled everything. Cherki, handed a start ahead of Rico Lewis, wriggled through and poked in on 54, and two minutes later Yeremy Pino’s free-kick clipped the woodwork and squirmed in off Gianluigi Donnarumma’s back. For one flickering moment, Selhurst Park believed.
That hope lasted three minutes. Cherki picked his spot from the edge of the box and his deflected strike made it 3-1 before Palace had digested the own goal. Haaland added a fourth on 84 minutes, a left-footed finish from Phil Foden’s pass, and the contest was done. What struck me most was Palace’s cluster of new signings, Tomiyasu, Khalaili, Disasi, Mingueza and McNeil all given minutes, and none of it slowed the tide once City raised the tempo.
Cherki is building a partnership, not a highlight reel
Here’s the detail most write-ups will skip. After two assists against Bournemouth, Cherki barely mentioned his own goals afterwards. He talked about wanting to play balls for Haaland, about giving him chances and goals. That’s a creative enabler speaking, not a trickster chasing clips, and it tells you exactly how Maresca plans to use him.
The chemistry is already showing. Haaland handed Cherki the Man of the Match award after the game, and Cherki joked it was “the first and last assist Haaland will ever give me”. The moment even made it onto City’s official account. You can’t coach that kind of rapport in one pre-season, and City didn’t try. Foden quietly collected two assists of his own, the steady hand while everyone stares at the magician, and Semenyo’s cross for the opener capped a front four that looked like it had played together for years.
Haaland’s night was oddly quiet and completely ruthless at once. Few touches, two goals, one a header and one a left-footed finish. He wore a black armband after the death of Norway’s King Harald V was announced that day, then celebrated his first goals of the season by grinning and rubbing a freshly shaven head. The man scores even when he barely participates. It never gets old.
Before anyone books the trophy parade
Two games is two games, so I’d pump the brakes a little. Anyone who remembers Pep’s opening weeks will have clocked the symmetry already.
It’s a fun coincidence and nothing more. What matters is the open question hanging over this team. When Cherki’s magic doesn’t show up, does the structure hold? Crystal Palace, for their part, look like a squad still being assembled under Pierre Sage, zero points from two games and a dressing room full of signings still learning each other’s names. City’s own defensive gaps flickered around the chaos of the own goal, and the new 10-second substitution rule even briefly held up a Palace change in a game already moving at a silly pace.
My verdict after two weeks of Marescaball: the ceiling looks higher than I expected and the floor is still untested. We spend most of our time here covering tech and entertainment, from Elon Musk’s billions to the Xbox Series X launch, but football nights like this refuse to stay in their lane. Watch the next month closely. If Cherki keeps feeding Haaland and Foden keeps humming underneath, the rest of the Premier League has a genuine problem, and the post-Pep era will feel far less frightening for City fans than anyone feared when Guardiola walked away.
