Manchester City head to Villa Park on Sunday determined to finally end their recent hoodoo at Aston Villa. City arrive on the back of a comfortable Champions League victory, a 2\u20130 win at Villarreal courtesy of first-half goals from Erling Haaland and Bernardo Silva. Haaland has been irresistible this season, failing to score in only one match and contributing 24 goals for club and country.<\/p>\n
Aston Villa come into the fixture in low spirits after a rotated side were beaten 2\u20131 by Go Ahead Eagles in the Europa League, a result that halted a five-match winning run across all competitions. The Midlands club must be more stubborn than they were in Deventer if they are to challenge City and push for a move into the top half of the table.<\/p>\n
Villa have a largely healthy squad but will be without Youri Tielemans following the calf injury he suffered in mid-September; he is unlikely to return before the November international break. Andr\u00e9s Garc\u00eda will miss out, and Lucas Digne is a significant doubt after sitting out the trip to the Netherlands with an ankle problem picked up at Tottenham Hotspur.<\/p>\n
Emery is expected to pick a side similar to the team that beat Spurs, with Ollie Watkins a possible recall for Donyell Malen. Evann Guessand, who scored his first Villa goal midweek, could continue on the right. Ian Maatsen is set to replace the injured Digne, while Morgan Rogers, John McGinn, Boubacar Kamara and Matty Cash are likely to start after only brief cameos in the Europa League.<\/p>\n
Aston Villa predicted lineup (4-2-3-1): Mart\u00ednez; Cash, Konsa, Torres, Maatsen; Kamara, Onana; Guessand, Rogers, McGinn; Watkins.<\/p>\n
Pep Guardiola has confirmed Rodri and Abdukodir Khusanov will miss the visit to Villa. Nico Gonz\u00e1lez, who suffered a foot injury against Villarreal, will be assessed nearer kick-off. Guardiola is expected to rotate his XI, with Tijjani Reijnders, Phil Foden and Nico O’Reilly pushing for returns.<\/p>\n
Man City predicted lineup (4-1-4-1): Donnarumma; Nunes, Dias, Gvardiol, O’Reilly; Kova\u010di\u0107; Silva, Reijnders, Foden, Doku; Haaland.<\/p>\n
Villa have a good recent home record against City, but City are favourites. Villa should test the visitors, but City\u2019s firepower, led by Haaland, could prove decisive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
City travel to Villa Park with Haaland in form; Villa aim to recover from Europa League loss. and injuries<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4038,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[711,1056,172],"tags":[947,988],"class_list":["post-4039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aston-villa","category-man-city","category-epl","tag-ankle-injury","tag-bernardo-silva"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4039","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=4039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}