Manchester City will like to put behind their humiliating defeat at the hands of Barcelona in the Champions League this past mid-week, when they host Southampton this weekend at the Etihad Stadium.
Except the last few matches in the league, where Manchester City haven’t been able to find a win against Tottenham Hotspur and Everton, Pep Guardiola’s men have started their season brilliantly. They are currently the league leaders with 19 points in their opening 8 games. They have won six of their opening games.
Southampton, on the other hand, haven’t had a poor start to the league either considering their standard. They currently sit at the 8th position with 12 points in their opening 8 games.
The Etihad Stadium has, however, not been a very lucky ground for Southampton with them losing their last 5 league visits here. City’s last meeting with Southampton, however, ended with them losing 4-2 to Sunderland.
Defence
With disastrous defending in the midweek against Barcelona, Pep Guardiola will expect his back line to shrug off the burden of their mistakes and think positively. Even with Vincent Kompany, their skipper out with injury, City have a plethora of talent at the back in Gael Clichy, Bacary Sagna, John Stones, Pablo Zabaleta, Aleksandar Kolarov and Nicolas Otamendi.
Guardiola has been recently experimenting a lot with the back line. In their 1-1 draw against Everton, he kept 3 at the back with a more attacking mind-set. While against Barcelona, he stuck to the conventional back four.
Against Southampton, however, he might fall back to a 3-man defence as it opens up quite a working space for the likes of Silva, De Bruyne and more importantly, gives him the option to introduce Sergio Aguero at the front.
Midfield
Guardiola has immense talent in his midfield. The central defensive duo of Ilkay Gundogan and Fernandinho will surely take their place in the middle behind David Silva and Kevin De Bruyne. While Fernandinho will be appointed for the defensive task, Gundogan is expected to be more involved up front.
David Silva and De Bruyne will be expecting a much easier game this time although they would hope not to repeat the careless mistakes they committed in the midweek.
Attack
After Pep Guardiola’s failed tactics of De Bruyne as the false number 9 against Barcelona, he is expected to bring his ever reliable striker Sergio Aguero and play him up front. However, Kelechi Iheanacho is also a big possibility as he scored 2 in their last 4-2 loss in May.
