The two sides that have dominated English football across the past eight Premier League seasons meet at the Etihad on Sunday. With the November international break looming, at least one team is likely to drop points and the loser, if there is one, will head into the break in a precarious position.<\/p>\n
Erling Haaland remains the obvious centre of attention. Only two teams have prevented Erling Haaland scoring this season. Tottenham Hotspur and Aston Villa both frustrated the relentless Norwegian, who took his tally to 27 goals for club and country during City\u2019s 4\u20131 win over his former club Borussia Dortmund midweek. Keeping Haaland under wraps is the route to success against the Cityzens, but thwarting him is an unenviable assignment. Ibrahima Konat\u00e9 is the most likely Liverpool defender to try to blunt that threat. The Frenchman has underwhelmed for the most part this season despite more encouraging performances since the October internationals, particularly struggling against direct and physical forwards.<\/p>\n
On the right flank there is an intriguing duel. Conor Bradley underscored his gargantuan potential in victory over Madrid midweek. Having pocketed Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 last season, the Northern Ireland international proceeded to stifle Vin\u00edcius J\u00fanior. Bradley will be an undisputed starter on Sunday due to Jeremie Frimpong\u2019s injury. He will face J\u00e9r\u00e9my Doku, who grabbed an assist and repeatedly troubled Dortmund and who often got the best of former Liverpool right back Trent Alexander-Arnold.<\/p>\n
Dominik Szoboszlai remains central to Liverpool\u2019s revival. He has started and finished all ten of Liverpool\u2019s Premier League matches this season and was crucial during the club\u2019s recent improvement. Szoboszlai scored and assisted in this exact fixture last season. Rodri is almost certain to miss, but Nico Gonz\u00e1lez has been in stellar form, impressing in victories over Bournemouth and Dortmund and offering a different midfield challenge.<\/p>\n
Finally, Matheus Nunes, redeployed by Pep Guardiola at right back, has improved but remains a perceived weak link after high profile errors, notably at home to Manchester United last season. He could face Cody Gakpo, who has seven goal contributions for Liverpool and produced six goals in as many matches for club and country during October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Four duels to watch as Man City meet Liverpool at the Etihad, each with decisive match implications.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4337,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,1056,172],"tags":[299,1047,872],"class_list":["post-4338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-man-city","category-epl","tag-arne-slot","tag-champions-league","tag-cody-gakpo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4338","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=4338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}