Our live stream ahead of Wednesdays Premier League match, Manchester City vs Aston Villa is now up, kicking off at 18.00 GMT
You can keep an eye on the commentary as it happens below, but first, we take a preview into the fixture, lineups, predictions and much more…
Pep Guardiola’s side have reinstated themselves as title favourites in the eyes of many with the best winning run any team has managed in the Premier League this season, and they will be looking to keep that going against a Villa side that has not been in top-flight action for almost three weeks.
Two goals from John Stones helped City to a comfortable 4-0 drubbing of Crystal Palace last time out and became the first team this season to string five top-flight wins together in the process.
In all competitions Man City’s winning run now stands at eight matches stretching back more than a month, while they are unbeaten in their last 15 outings.
Villa’s last first-team outing was another trip to Manchester as they fell to a 2-1 defeat at the hands of Manchester United, and they have not picked up a victory since beating Crystal Palace on Boxing Day.
In fairness, they have faced Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool and now Man City in succession since then, and given Man City’s form in general, and indeed in this fixture, Dean Smith may not be expecting too much from their trip to the Etihad.
LAST MEETING:
It was a showpiece occasion the last time these two clubs met, the Carabao Cup final at Wembley last March.
Sergio Aguero and Rodrigo were both on target to fire City into a 2-0 lead before Mbwana Samatta narrowed the deficit.
However, City held firm to secure a third successive League Cup final triumph.
PRESS CONFERENCE:
PEP GUARDIOLA
“Sergio is not ready for tomorrow. He is still isolating. I don’t know (for how long.)
“Aymeric is at the last step. He is not ready for tomorrow, but he is training with us.
“Yesterday was the first one, today was the second.
“Hopefully (he will be available for the weekend). That would be good news. We need him. We cannot play with just Stones and Ruben. We need Nathan, Eric. We need Laporte.
“The only concern is Aston Villa right now. We don’t know who will be available, right now, we will see tomorrow in the line-up. The performance is the only concerns.
“In this league you can win five games in a row and then lose three in a row. The most important thing is Aston Villa.”
DEAN SMITH
“We’ll go to the game and play as we have been playing. We’re looking forward to it.”
“They’re a very good team – we know that, and they’re playing at the top of their game at the moment.”
“I believe that we’re a different proposition to what we were last season and it’s down to ourselves to go and prove that.”
“We’ve had a small build-up to this game because of the Coronavirus outbreak at the football club, but it’s a chance to go and test ourselves again.”
FORM:
Manchester City Premier League form: DWWWWW
Manchester City form (all competitions): WWWWWW
Aston Villa Premier League form: WDWWDL
Aston Villa form (all competitions): DWWDLL
LINEUPS:
Manchester City possible starting lineup:
Ederson; Cancelo, Stones, Dias, Mendy; De Bruyne, Rodri, Gundogan; Mahrez, Sterling, Foden
Aston Villa possible starting lineup:
Martinez; Cash, Konsa, Mings, Targett; Luiz, McGinn; El Ghazi, Barkley, Grealish; Watkins
THATSAGOAL TIP:
PeP Guardiola’s team are in fine form and now favourites to win the Premier League title. They will go to the top of the table with a win tonight, and perhaps more importantly, four points ahead of Liverpool. City go into tonight’s match having won their last eight games in all competitions and their last five in the league.
Aston Villa are also having a very good season but will have a backlog of matches having only played 15 times (Leicester have played 19). They were beaten 2-1 at Manchester United last time out and their away matches before that seen them draw 1-1 with Chelsea and beat both Wolves (1-0) and West Brom (3-0).
For tonight’s Premier League bets on this one, the form of City is hard to ignore and they’ve also kept a clean sheet in four of their last five matches now. Stones and Dias are playing really well as a partnership and so my bet is City to win to nil.
PREDICTION: Manchester City to win to nil – 6/5 with FanTeam.
Time to take a look at our Manchester City vs Aston Villa live match stream as it happens…
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