Aston Villa host Manchester City in the Premier League on Saturday December 21st 2024. Kick-off at Villa Park is 12:30pm GMT.
Pep Guardiola’s team is looking to turn around their struggling results after losing to Manchester United last weekend. In total, City has lost five of their last seven league matches. They have only won once in their last 11 games across all competitions.
This poor form has dropped them to fifth place in the league, leaving them nine points behind the leaders, Liverpool, even though they have played one more game.
Aston Villa will be a challenging opponent for City. Under Unai Emery, Villa has made a good start to their first Champions League season and is just three points shy of breaking into the top four. They currently sit fifth in the league and are on track for automatic qualification to the Round of 16.
Pep Guardiola also shared some bad news during a press conference on Friday. Ruben Dias will be out for ‘three or four weeks’ due to a muscular injury. However, John Stones and Manuel Akanji are back from injury and could help strengthen the defence.
Rico Lewis is also back after serving a suspension that kept him out of the Manchester Derby. Mateo Kovacic might be brought into the midfield, which has been lacking energy recently.
The predicted lineup for Manchester City is: Ortega; Lewis, Stones, Akanji, Gvardiol; Kovacic, De Bruyne, Bernardo; Foden, Doku; Haaland.
Aston Villa (4-2-3-1, right to left): 23. Emiliano Martinez (GK) — 2. Matty Cash, 3. Diego Carlos, 14. Pau Torres, 12. Lucas Digne — 44. Boubacar Kamara, 8. Youri Tielemans — 31. Leon Bailey, 7. John McGinn, 27. Morgan Rogers — 11. Ollie Watkins
© Copyrights Sixsports. All Rights Reserved.