Man City vs Liverpool – Analysis, Prediction, Team News

As part of our weekend Premier League predictions, we take a look at Liverpool’s visit to the Etihad Stadium. Liverpool have won 1 of their last 6 PL away matches – too big a task? Read on with our Man City vs Liverpool prediction.

Man City vs Liverpool Match Preview

Following the international break to begin Euro 2024 qualifying, Man City host Liverpool at the Etihad Stadium. In City’s last Premier League outing almost three weeks ago away to Crystal Palace, Pep Guardiola’s men had something of a tough time in breaking down Palace’s obdurate defence. While Crystal Palace themselves showed very little ambition of their own, it took a 78th-minute Erling Haaland penalty to break the deadlock. As predicted, Crystal Palace are proving to be difficult to score against at Selhurst Park, even in the midst of a poor run of form.

Therefore, City’s 7-0 thrashing of RB Leipzig came as something of a shock, particularly after a well-balanced first leg in which the German side were the better team in the second half and well worth a 1-1 draw. Although we acknowledge that City do possess an array of attacking talent that means that such results aren’t out of the question, to follow that result up with a 6-0 dismantling of Championship leaders Burnley in the FA Cup demonstrated a ruthless quality that had perhaps at times been missing this season.

Liverpool were as poor against Bournemouth as they were excellent against Manchester United. This is a team that continues to confound the analysts, although their away form in general didn’t take much of an upturn even during their mini-resurgence in the league. The manner of the defeat itself will have caused much consternation among the Liverpool faithful and the coaching staff themselves, as although Bournemouth were somewhat reliant upon Mohammed Salah’s extremely poor penalty, they didn’t generate more goal threat than their lowly hosts (accounting for the high xG of a penalty) and weren’t unlucky in losing.

Consequently, we see a highly talented yet deeply flawed team level on points with Brighton and Brentford in 7th and 8th place, but with two games in hand and a seven-point gap between themselves and an inconsistent Spurs team. Remarkably, Liverpool may very well qualify for next season’s Champions League if they can improve their away form in particular and put together a run of form over the remaining 12 matches. An insipid 1-0 defeat away to Real Madrid, despite the disappointing performance, will probably have little bearing on the rest of the campaign as in truth the game was already decided at Anfield 5-2 in the Spaniards’ favour.

Team News

Injuries and Suspensions

Man City:

Might Not Play: Foden, Haaland

Will Not Play:

Liverpool:

Might Not Play: Bajcetic, Ramsay, Thiago

Will Not Play: Diaz, Gomez, Tsimikas

Man City vs Liverpool Lineups (Predicted)

Man City (4-2-3-1): Ederson; Ake, Laporte, Dias, Walker; Rodri, Gundogan; Silva, De Bruyne, Grealish; Haaland

Liverpool (4-3-3): Alisson; Robertson, Konate, Van Dijk, Alexander-Arnold; Fabinho, Elliott, Henderson; Salah, Gakpo, Nunez

Man City vs Liverpool Analysis

City are Starting to Click… Again

It feels as though we are in the midst of a three-part series when it comes to assessing this season’s Manchester City team. They, and Rapacious goalscorer Erling Haaland, started the season in blistering fashion but have at times appeared to be a team that was struggling to integrate the former Dortmund man. Though this particular issue has been analysed to the point of exhaustion, there were times that City were preoccupied with maintaining their previous possession-heavy brand of football which at times meant that their biggest goal threat effectively was missing in some games.

Although it’s perhaps unreasonable to expect any player to excel in every single match, there were some 5 and 6 out of 10 performances in amongst the 9 and the 10s. Away matches against Liverpool, Dortmund and Manchester United, their shock home defeat at home to Brentford, a shock 1-1 draw away to Nottingham Forest and a disappointing 1-0 defeat away to Spurs were all matches in which Pep’s men looked out of ideas and resorted to swinging in crosses against well-prepared defences.

Therefore, it’s perhaps unsurprising that City’s last couple of performances have emphasised the importance of moving the ball quicker and with purpose. 62% possession against RB Leipzig and 58% against Burnley with a mostly full-strength team shows that they are prepared to adapt their approach to suit their chief goal threat’s strengths and although two games is admittedly a small sample, 13 goals in two matches is difficult to find fault with. How does this affect this match? It’s obvious that Liverpool aren’t likely to defend in numbers and cede territory quite so much as the likes of Crystal Palace and Everton, and this certainly could favour the hosts.

Can Anybody Predict Which Liverpool Will Turn Up?

It’s so difficult to anticipate which Liverpool team will show up. Their 7-0 destruction of Manchester United was so impressive as to be almost completely alien to the vast majority of their performances this season, yet served as a timely reminder of the ceiling this team possesses. Ordinarily, we could perhaps extrapolate that they could play above themselves again here in such a big match, but we can’t ignore the disappointing performances against Real Madrid in the Champions League – therefore, that’s hardly a certainty.

Liverpool did show in the first leg of that Champions League encounter that they’re capable of producing against any side in European football on their day… for 20 minutes. Real Madrid are made of sterner stuff than Manchester United (who reverted to their early season state of fragility and inexplicably performed like relegation candidates that day), and there was an inevitability about their comeback if not the eventual three-goal winning margin.

Although Liverpool are in sixth place in the Premier League this season for a reason, namely a patchwork midfield which doesn’t protect the back four or drive the team on as well as it has for the past five years or so, the greatest compliment we can give them is that it wouldn’t be a huge shock if they were to turn up and beat City at the Etihad. They’ve proven that with Nunez’s industry and physicality up front, Salah’s trickery, movement and ability to convert half chances, Cody Gakpo’s intelligent forward play and composure in front of goal and the ever-present threat of their flying full backs Robertson and Alexander-Arnold that they can still reach those heights; at times.

Our Prediction

The form guide clearly suggests Man City will come out on top here. Liverpool have been hugely disappointing away from home, in general, all season. Conversely, City have failed to win just twice at home in all competitions, have won their last eight, and have scored three or more goals in six of those matches. It depends upon how Liverpool approach this tactically – the last time Man City had more than 60% possession at home against Liverpool was in their 2018 Champions League clash. You may think ‘well that’s great, Liverpool are competitive against City’. However, this time we feel that Liverpool will be too open for their own good and City will continue their goalscoring spree.

Man City 3-1 Liverpool

Man City vs Liverpool Betting Tip – Man City Odds: