Manchester City – Southampton

Manchester City faces Southampton at the Etihad in a match from the 11th round of the English Premier League. The champions will try to win for a third consecutive time in the league and eventually move closer to the leader Liverpool, who is currently 6 points ahead.

Since their shocking home defeat against Wolverhampton Wanderers, Man City reacted with four consecutive wins in all competitions – two of them in the Premier League.

Last weekend Pep Guardiola’s boys hosted Aston Villa and enjoyed a convincing 3-0 win. Raheem Sterling, David Silva and Ilkay Gundogan scored for the hosts.

Meanwhile on Wednesday Manchester City qualified for the League Cup’s 1/4-finals as well. The cup holders hosted their next opponent in the Premier League Southampton and achieved a 3-1 win. The centre back Nicolas Otamendi opened the score for City, while the club’s best all time scorer Sergio Aguero added two goals for the win. In this game Pep Guardiola gave playing time to young lads like Eric Garcia, Angelino, Phil Foden and Thomas Doyle.

Being 6 points behind Liverpool in the Premier League, Man City can’t allow themselves any mistakes at the moment. They know this very well.

It sounds hard to believe, but Southampton conceded 12 goals in their last two matches. On Friday they were humilated with 0-9 by Leicester City at their own St. Mary’s, while how we said – they also conceded three times against Manchester City in the League Cup.

The manager Ralph Hasenhuttl apologized to the fans for what happened against Leicester, but the problem is that now his team could concede a lot of goals at the Etihad as well. The champions have scored 11 goals in their last three fixtures, which speaks for their firepower.

Can Southampton stop conceding so much goals, when they face the champion Manchester City on Saturday? This is the main question which troubles the Saints’ fans at the moment.