Manchester City – Southampton

Winning at any cost – this is what Manchester City must be thinking of when they host Southampton at the Etihad on Saturday. In our English Premier League predictions we will see what’s the reason for this.

If Man City want to beat Liverpool for the title again and defend their crown, they absolutely need to stop making any mistakes. The Cityzens are 6 points behind the Reds in the standings, which is not a good position to be at the moment. What City can do now is win every game they have and hope to see Liverpool making some mistakes.

This is the second time in few days when these two teams will face each other at the Etihad. On Tuesday Manchester City already beat Southampton once, when they met in a match from the 1/8-finals of the League Cup. The game ended with a 3-1 win for City with Nicolas Ottamendi and Sergio Aguero (twice) scoring the goals. Jack Stephens scored the Saints’ only goal in the game.

On Tuesday Pep Guardiola gave a rest to some key players like David Silva, Raheem Sterling and Kevin De Bruyne, so we expect to see them start on Saturday. Ilkay Gundogan also recieved a rest from the Spanish manager.

Southampton’s mental state in the Premier League is questionable at the moment, given the fact that in the previous round the Saints conceded a shocking 0-9 defeat against Leicester City at the St. Mary’s. The manager Ralph Hassenhuttl wasn’t sacked after the fiasco, but surely he lost a lot of fans after this humilation.

What can we say in our English Premier League predictions for today? During the week Manchester City already did the job once against Southampton, so we expect to see them doing it for a second time now. The Saints’ defense is in a very bad state now, conceding 12 goals in Southampton’s last two games.