The Crystal Ball: Manchester City vs. Liverpool
By Taylor Smith
November 4, 2020, The City of Manchester Stadium, Manchester, UK | Manchester City and Premier League rivals Liverpool prepare to face off in an early-season meeting that could have title implications come May.
Liverpool ended their 30-year wait to become Champions of England once again, and in order to do so, they had to overcome back-to-back champions Manchester City, who had tallied 198 points over their previous two title-winning seasons.
These have been the two most outstanding sides in the English Top Flight for the past four seasons, and this will be a potentially season-defining fixture for both clubs.
Home side Manchester City have had a lackluster start to this campaign, at least by their own high standards. A loss to a very good Leicester City side and a draw with a plucky West Ham means that the Cityzens currently sit in 10th place on 11 points with a game in hand on most of the teams above them.
It would be foolish to expect a club with the kind of talent that City possesses to end the season in their current position, but their choppy start to the campaign has already left them with a lot of ground to make-up on their main competitors for the title, Liverpool.
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Pep Guardiola will hope that the fit-again Gabriel Jesus can bring some added firepower to the City attack, which has been ailing with Sergio Aguero and Jesus himself languishing on the treatment table for the past few weeks.
With the always dangerous Raheem Sterling, Kevin de Bruyne, Riyad Mahrez, and new addition Ferran Torres in decent form in the Champions League, Jesus will look to complement his teammates as they hope to repeat the scoreline from this fixture last season, a 4-0 dismantling of the newly crowned champions.
Liverpool were understandably poor to a man on that day. One can imagine the celebrations of a long-awaited title taking their toll on concentration and energy levels. Manager Jurgen Klopp will not allow that to happen again, however, so expect the Reds to drastically improve their team performance this time around.
Liverpool will be entering this match riding the high of the 5-0 thrashing of Atalanta in the UEFA Champions League, where the in-form Diogo Jota bagged his first hat-trick for his new club. He may be given the start ahead of a misfiring Roberto Firmino, or Klopp may look to get both attackers on the pitch, but that’s a welcomed selection headache.
An unwelcome selection headache persists for Klopp in defense—it may be folly to risk Joel Matip so soon upon his return to training. Likewise, a match like this is a truly pressurized situation, so handing either Nat Phillips or Rhys Williams the start, both of whom were excellent in their full debuts, might be too much to ask for the inexperienced players in a game of this magnitude.
Expect Klopp to make his decision late and to get it right, because he usually does.