The season’s first Manchester derby arrives on Sunday as Manchester City host Manchester United in the Premier League. Both sides enter the fixture with questions over form and selection after indifferent starts to 2025\/26.<\/p>\n
City arrive as favourites on paper but recent results have raised concerns. Back-to-back defeats to Tottenham Hotspur (0\u20132) and Brighton & Hove Albion (2\u20131) followed earlier wins and heavy defeats in pre-season and European friendlies. Pep Guardiola confirmed Omar Marmoush will be absent after sustaining an injury on international duty with Egypt; he\u2019s set for \u201ca few weeks\u201d on the sidelines and joins Mateo Kova\u010di\u0107, Rayan Cherki and Rayan A\u00eft-Nouri in the treatment room. John Stones is a doubt after withdrawing from England duty, though Guardiola says the rest of his squad is available. That leaves room for questions over whether Gianluigi Donnarumma will replace James Trafford in goal.<\/p>\n
Man City predicted lineup vs. Man Utd (4-1-4-1): Donnarumma; Nunes, Dias, Ak\u00e9, Gvardiol; Rodri; Bobb, Silva, Reijnders, Doku; Haaland.<\/p>\n
United have had mixed results themselves, beaten by Arsenal and Grimsby Town and narrowly defeating Burnley before the September break. Ruben Amorim confirmed Matheus Cunha, Mason Mount and Diogo Dalot will miss the derby, with Lisandro Mart\u00ednez already sidelined long term. Andr\u00e9 Onana\u2019s departure means Altay Bay\u0131nd\u0131r will start again despite the arrival of Senne Lammens. Bruno Fernandes is expected to operate in a more advanced role and Benjamin \u0160e\u0161ko could make his first Premier League start.<\/p>\n
Man Utd predicted lineup vs. Man City (3-4-2-1): Bay\u0131nd\u0131r; Yoro, De Ligt, Shaw; Mazraoui, Casemiro, Mainoo, Dorgu; Mbeumo, Fernandes; \u0160e\u0161ko.<\/p>\n
Television: United States \u2014 Peacock. United Kingdom \u2014 Sky Sports Main Event, Sky Sports Premier League, Sky Ultra HD, Sky GO, Sky GO Extra, NOW TV. Canada \u2014 DAZN Canada, fuboTV Canada, Amazon Prime Video, Fubo Sports Network Canada. Mexico \u2014 Caliente TV, Amazon Prime Video.<\/p>\n
Neither side can take victory for granted. City have been favourites in recent derbies but lost two of the last four meetings, including a late defeat at the Etihad last season. United have shown signs of improvement under Amorim and could expose vulnerabilities in a City defence that has looked porous at times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Etihad showdown: City host United in the first 2025\/26 derby amid injuries and selection doubts. v1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2775,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[238,179,969],"tags":[317,342,272],"class_list":["post-2776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-manchester-city","category-manchester-united","category-premier-league","tag-benjamin-sesko","tag-bruno-fernandes","tag-erling-haaland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}