Manchester City will make the daunting trip to the Anfield as they look to breach a frontier they haven’t been able to in the Sheikh Mansour era. In fact, The Sky Blues haven’t won at Anfield ever since the 2002/03 season and it is the only ground in the Premier League that the new look City haven’t won a match. Liverpool have played a mesmerising brand of football whenever City have come calling and with Klopp at the helm it is expected to be on the same lines.
But Guardiola is not the one to take things lying down and will surely have something up his sleeve. But there are concerns that he doesn’t have the appropriate players in defence to be able to carry out his orders and hence the inconsistent displays thus far. City have been involved in high quality and some enthralling matches against the likes of United, Arsenal and Chelsea and the New Year’s Eve clash is likely to be on the same lines.
TRIVIA
- Liverpool have won their last three Premier League games in a row. The last time they won four consecutively against the Citizens was in 1981 (a run of seven).
- Manchester City’s last and only Premier League win at Anfield (D5 L13) came in May 2003, as Nicolas Anelka scored twice against his former club in a 2-1 victory.
- Sergio Aguero has scored four times against Liverpool in the Premier League but none of those goals have been at Anfield.
- Liverpool have never failed to score in their previous 19 home Premier League games against City.
- Liverpool ended both 2014 (4-1 v Swansea City) and 2015 (1-0 v Sunderland) with a league win.
- Since failing to score in consecutive Premier League games at the end of March 2016, Man City have only failed to find the net in one of their last 26 matches and scored 58 goals in that time.
- Claudio Bravo has kept as many clean sheets in his last three Premier League appearances (2) as he did in his first 12.
- Kelechi Iheanacho (20y 84d) is the third youngest Premier League player to score five goals from the subs bench – the two younger than the Nigerian are Wayne Rooney (18y 64d) and Jermain Defoe (19y 160d).
- Daniel Sturridge scored his first Premier League goal of the season in Liverpool’s win over Stoke City on December 27th – it was his 21st shot of 2016-17 overall in the competition.
TEAM NEWS & PREDICTED LINE-UPS
LIVERPOOL (4-3-3)
Jurgen Klopp has revealed Joel Matip will miss the home encounter against Man City due to an ongoing ankle injury, while Philippe Coutinho isn’t expected to return until Matchday 21. Both of them might end up as being crucial misses for Liverpool but they will back the squad they have to do the job against City.
Mignolet; Clyne, Lovren, Klavan, Milner; Lallana, Henderson, Wijnaldum; Firmino, Origi, Mane
MANCHESTER CITY (4-1-4-1)
Sergio Aguero is back after a 4-match suspension which will be a huge boost for City. Leroy Sane is not ready for the game while Vincent Kompany is still out. Gundogan is a long-term absentee.
Bravo; Sagna, Otamendi, Kolarov, Clichy; Fernandinho; Toure, Silva, De Bruyne, Sterling; Aguero
BETTING ODDS
LIVERPOOL- 27/20
DRAW- 13/5
MANCHESTER CITY- 21/10
TRIVIA COURTESY- OPTA
