The late kick-off on Saturday sees defending Champions Manchester City host Newcastle United.
Newcastle will be looking to get whatever they can from the game as they only have one point in their first 3 games.
Manchester City on the other hand will be hoping to get back to winning ways after a 1-1 draw last weekend with newly promoted side Wolves.
Champions Manchester City will be looking to build momentum off of beating Newcastle this weekend after dropping 2 points away to Wolves.
The silver lining? They also dropped points at the start of last season (drawing 1-1 to Everton) and went on to win the league by some margin. Guardiola’s men will be optimistic ahead of this game as this fixture has been rewarding for City in the past with them last dropping points to Newcastle in the [Premier League in November of 2006.
Pep Guardiola announced in his pre-match press conference that there are no new injuries so the squad will be the same but will not feature the injured Danilo, Bravo and Kevin De Bruyne.
Guardiola said in regards to preparing for the game: “We spend more time on what we have to do in ourselves because at the end we can just image wat our opponents our going to do but we don’t know 100 per cent”.
Rafa Benitez’s Newcastle United will be aware of the club’s history against Manchester City and the form that the Champions achieved last season at the Etihad Stadium whilst knowing they have had a rough start to the season.
Newcastle’s only point came against Cardiff City away and they come into the game off of a 3-1 defeat to Nottingham Forest in the Carabao Cup.
The worry for Benitez will be that City have scored 9 goals in their opening three games and striker Sergio Aguero appears to be in great form.
Aguero has scored 14 goals in 11 Premier League outings against Newcastle and already has found the back of the net three times this season.
Benitez has said that captain Jamaal Lascelles will be back for the game however Matt Ritchie and Jonjo Shelvey will both be out.
Ritchie and Lascelles recently had arguments with the manager, Lascelles was left out against Chelsea when Newcastle lost 2-1.
Despite a rough start and supposed arguments taking place, Benitez said “I don’t have any doubts things are fine with our team” and “We are very close. With the resources that we have, we are doing well.”
The game takes place tomorrow at 17:30 at the Etihad Stadium and will be shown live on BT Sport 1 with coverage starting at 5.
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