Rayan Cherki's Spectacular Performance at Selhurst Park
For 45 minutes at Selhurst Park, Manchester City huffed and puffed without finding a way in. Then Rayan Cherki decided the place was his.
The 23-year-old turned a tight, tetchy game into his own showcase, leaving the pitch eight minutes from time with a performance that read like a video-game stat line: three shots on target, three key passes, three successful dribbles, and 29 ball carries, covering 2.2 kilometres with the ball at his feet. Crystal Palace never got close to solving him.
The breakthrough said everything about his talent. Cherki took a pass from Phil Foden on the edge of the box, dropped his shoulder and slalomed past three defenders, the ball stuck to his boots as if tethered. Just when it looked like he was losing his footing, he wrong-footed Dean Henderson with a deft poke into the corner. A moment of chaos, finished with absolute composure.
The second goal owed something to fortune, but only after Cherki created the danger again. He carved out space 20 yards from goal and let fly; the shot took a hefty deflection off Chris Richards and flew past Henderson. The element of luck didn’t disguise the intent. In five ruthless minutes, Cherki had killed the contest.
Jamie Redknapp, watching on for Sky Sports, could barely contain his admiration.
“Rayan Cherki painted a masterpiece,” he said. “It was an incredible goal [his first]. 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. 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.”
That word hangs over this new City: freedom. Like Pep Guardiola, Maresca wants the ball and wants to dictate games, but his version stretches the pitch, leans into width and gives his artists room to improvise. Cherki is no longer looking over his shoulder every time he embarks on a dribble or threads a risky pass – the kind of invention that once earned him a public scolding from Guardiola after that audacious rabona cross to set up Foden against Sunderland last season.
Give him freedom, and he becomes something else entirely: a match-winner you can’t legislate for. Not every dribble comes off, not every gamble pays, but City need that chaos, especially against teams who sit deep in a low block and invite sterile domination.
Cherki’s debut season in Manchester was impressive on paper, yet it always felt like there was more locked inside him. He finished with a combined 25 goals and assists in all competitions, a remarkable haul given he started only 19 Premier League games and just four in the Champions League under Guardiola. The numbers told one story. The eye test told another: a player boxed in by instructions.
Guardiola’s positional play demanded he hug the touchline or occupy a specific zone, moving only when the pattern allowed. Come inside too early, lose the ball in the wrong area, and the carefully choreographed passing network fell apart. Guardiola made his stance clear after the Sunderland game, explaining: “I like the simplicity because I learned from Lionel Messi that I never make a mistake with the simple things.” With that philosophy, Cherki was never going to be the central architect.
Maresca ripped up that script on day one. His first big call was to move Cherki into the middle, floating behind Erling Haaland. From there, the Frenchman is encouraged to spin in tight pockets, draw markers, and become the team’s creative engine. Where Guardiola tried to ration his touches, Maresca wants him on the ball, constantly asking questions.
This isn’t a free pass to stroll around. Out of possession, Cherki still has to graft, and he did it well against Palace, diligently tracking Adam Wharton and disrupting Palace’s attempts to build. The difference comes when City attack. Maresca rewards that defensive effort with trust in the final third, loosening the reins and letting instinct take over.
Across Europe, the same pattern is emerging. Coaches are starting to tilt systems around their mavericks again. At Paris Saint-Germain, Luis Enrique’s fluid structure is built to isolate Khvicha Kvaratskhelia one-on-one and give him license to drift centrally when Nuno Mendes surges forward from left-back. At Bayern Munich, Vincent Kompany bends his framework to suit Michael Olise, freeing him to roam and create. At Barcelona, Hansi Flick allows Lamine Yamal to read and attack space on his own terms in a relentlessly vertical setup.
Cherki sits in that company now, part of a new wave of playmakers being empowered rather than constrained. For a while, Guardiola’s obsession with control – wildly successful at Barcelona, Bayern and City – spawned imitators everywhere, leading to rigid structures that squeezed out the free spirits. Possession became a science. The artists were told to colour inside the lines.
Selhurst Park felt like a backlash to that. Cherki’s display underlined how football changes when it’s treated as an art form instead of a mechanical exercise. He showed you can still be a showman and a teammate, still obey the system while bending it to your will.
If this is what he looks like with the shackles off, the real question is not whether Maresca is right to trust him.
It’s how far City can go with Cherki holding the brush.
