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Man City broke all records last season with a fourth consecutive premier league title and as Pep Guardiola enters the last year of his current deal in Manchester the citizens will be fully intent on underlining their status as one of the best sides in premier league history with a surely unassailable fifth title on the bounce this season they've started in the kind of roaring form they'll need to sustain to do just that with two wins over Chelsea and dip switch in their first two fixtures and that extends an unbeaten League run that goes all the way back to the six of December last year when Aston Villa beat them 1- nil at Villa Park thanks to a stunning run from Leon Bailey and a hefty deflection off Ruben Diaz Villa were one of just three sides to beat City last year and guardiola's team finished with a non-penalty expected goal difference of 1.24 per 90 second behind Arsenal but enough to generate them the most expected points 83 a figure they beat by eight in real terms to come out on top in an incredibly tight title race there have been a couple of changes to the team from last year with the biggest move being the departure of Julian Alvarez to Atletico Madrid Sergio gome has also departed for real sadad in search of minut whilst Calvin Phillips will once again look to recapture his best form on loan with newly promoted ipswitch laa will be a big loss but this will be assuaged by the return of hero of many previous Seasons ilai gundan his club last season Barcelona were pushed hard by a surprise arrival at the lia's top table in Jona who were inspired by the incredible form of a young Brazilian Winger called svho a quick set of multiclub enabled Maneuvers later and he'll be turning out on the wings in Manchester this season it's almost impossible to predict Pep's lineups so we won't even attempt to suggest which four it'll be out of foden dku greish svino De bruyne Sila and gundan rodri could make his return to the lineup while foden could also recover from a bout of illness but one player sure not to be involved is Young Norwegian forward no not that one Oscar Bob I know it would have been handy if it was the other one City will line up in their traditional three box three shape and should Rico Lewis continue to be picked at right back to invert into Midfield we could see the same augmentation to this shape that we saw against Chelsea with Lewis stepping up and overloading the defensive midfielders with an extra number creating something of a diamond shape in the middle when they lose the ball City will counter press aggressively to try to win it back with a 3-1 base behind before dropping into a shape that can oscillate between a 4141 and a 442 where one player from the four can jump to support Harland whilst the midfielders behind reconfigure into a 442 curiously City only ranked sixth for ppda in the Premier League last season and this will be down to the fact that they become the least intense off ball team in the top five European leagues in their defensive third if that initially intense press fails City will sit in that 4141 shape and not commit to jewels with the chance of gaps opening if a player is beaten last time these sides met foden emphatically backed up his PFA players Player of the Year and Premier League player of the Season credential with a quick fire double that effectively finished the game just 18 minutes in could has produced an incredible bicycle kick at the end of the first half and with two of those in recent games against Man City plus a stunning longrange effort from lanini at the Etihad and West Ham are well aware of the kind of heroics they'll need to perform to get a result here perhaps with their very own spider coming in to ens snare City's left Wingers just as he did in the fa cut final last season to help United to a 13th FA Cup title they'll have a better platform to do just that this is usually the time where I'd say I'm really excited for the game this weekend but it's City and that kind of makes us really nervous about what the result might be but anyway we'll still be talking about the game afterwards on patreon we'll be doing Q&A all the other things that we do plus Euro review please come and check it out first seven days free