Rayan Cherki's Masterclass at Selhurst Park
Selhurst Park has seen some gifted visitors over the years, but on this night it belonged to one man. Rayan Cherki turned a tense, bitty Manchester City performance into his own exhibition, ripping up the script of a frustrating first half and rewriting it with flair, audacity and sheer volume of work.
By the time he walked off eight minutes from time, the numbers told part of the story: three shots on target, three key passes, three successful dribbles, 29 ball carries and 2.2 kilometres covered with the ball at his feet. The rest you had to feel. Palace certainly did.
A first goal from another era
City had been stuck in traffic before the break, Palace sitting deep and happy to spoil. Then Cherki found the ignition.
The breakthrough came from a Phil Foden pass into the edge of the box. Routine enough. What followed was anything but. Cherki collected it, dipped his shoulders, and slalomed past three Palace defenders, the ball stitched to his boots as if by thread. Just as he seemed to be losing his footing, he wrong‑footed Dean Henderson with a deft poke into the corner.
It was the sort of goal that silences a stadium for a heartbeat. Then the noise changes. From hope to resignation.
Palace had no answer. They barely had time to process it before Cherki struck again.
Five minutes that killed the contest
His second carried a touch of fortune, but only after he had created the platform himself. Cherki again carved out space 20 yards from goal, refused the safe pass and went for it. His strike cannoned off Chris Richards, sending Henderson the wrong way and the ball into the net.
A big deflection, yes. But the courage to take it on belonged entirely to Cherki. In five ruthless minutes, he turned a tight match into a non-event. Game over.
From the Sky Sports gantry, Jamie Redknapp could barely contain his admiration.
“Rayan Cherki painted a masterpiece,” he said. “It was an incredible goal. He felt like the difference because the goals came at such an important time. He had such an amazing effect on the game. He is a genius, the things that he can do with a football are just incredible.”
Redknapp reached for the highest company available.
“There are not many Premier League players who can do this. I think Eden Hazard, possibly, could have done that. He was that type of player, the low centre of gravity and then to somehow smuggle the ball away into the corner.
“[Georgi] Kinkladze, Manchester City fans of another generation will remember him. He could get past people in a telephone box and this is very similar. But Cherki is a beautiful player. We have been talking about where he fits in because Enzo Maresca does like structure. But with someone like Cherki you have to accept his freedom, you have to let him do his thing.”
From Guardiola’s grid to Maresca’s canvas
That word again: freedom. It defines the fault line between Cherki’s City then and Cherki’s City now.
Like Pep Guardiola, Maresca wants the ball. He wants control of territory, control of rhythm. But he also wants width, risk and improvisation in the final third. Cherki is no longer the winger chained to a touchline or a zone on the chalkboard. He is the one invited to break the pattern.
Under Guardiola, the Lyon academy product still posted outstanding numbers: 25 combined goals and assists across competitions, despite starting only 19 Premier League games and four in the Champions League. Those returns came while he was constantly rotated and drilled to obey strict positional instructions.
He was told to hold his width, to wait in defined pockets, to avoid inverting too early or dribbling into traffic. One misstep, and the passing mechanism Guardiola had mapped out in microscopic detail could be thrown off.
“I like the simplicity because I learned from Lionel Messi that I never make a mistake with the simple things,” Guardiola said when he publicly scolded Cherki after that infamous rabona cross assist for Foden against Sunderland. With that philosophy, Cherki was never going to be handed the keys to City’s attack.
Maresca walked in and changed the blueprint. His first big call? Move Cherki inside, behind Erling Haaland, and build around his instincts rather than trimming them.
Now the Frenchman is encouraged to operate in the most crowded areas, to take the extra touch, to see if he can slip through a gap that shouldn’t exist. He is asked to be the creative engine, not just a cog that keeps the shape neat.
The bargain is clear. Out of possession, he has to work. Against Palace, he did exactly that, tracking and hassling Adam Wharton with real discipline. In return, Maresca gives him trust and space to express himself when City attack.
The return of the free spirit
For years, Guardiola’s success at Barcelona, Bayern Munich and City set the standard. His demand for control, for rehearsed patterns and positional play, reshaped elite football. It also spawned imitators who copied the structure but not the nuance, squeezing the oxygen out of the mavericks who colour the game.
Now, a different wave of coaches is quietly pushing back, without abandoning the ball or the modern game’s tactical demands.
Cherki is part of a new – or perhaps old – idea coming back into vogue. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia at Paris Saint-Germain thrives in Luis Enrique’s fluid set-up, often isolated one-on-one and given licence to drift inside when Nuno Mendes surges forward. Vincent Kompany treats Michael Olise at Bayern Munich as a problem-solver in the final third, not a pawn. Hansi Flick allows Lamine Yamal to read space on his own terms in a vertical Barcelona system.
They are all trusted to improvise. They are all encouraged to take on defenders, to risk the ball, to try the outrageous when the game screams for something different.
Cherki sits comfortably in that company. His performance at Selhurst Park felt like a manifesto: this is what happens when a gifted playmaker is allowed to breathe.
Guardiola’s vision has reshaped an era and will stand the test of time. But nights like this underline a simple truth. Football is at its most alive when someone is prepared to treat it as an art, not just an algorithm.
Cherki did that against Palace. If Maresca keeps giving him that freedom, how much more damage can he do to the rest of the Premier League?
