MATCH PREVIEW: Manchester City vs Liverpool, Saturday 9/9/2017, 12.30 BST.
Stadium:
Etihad stadium, built in 2002 for the Commonwealth games, it was converted to a football specific stadium a year later and has been the home for Man City ever since the 2003-04 season. Originally, the City of Manchester Stadium, the name was changed after the Abu Dhabi Group took control of City. It has underwent a lot of renovations since then, expanding the capacity to approximately 55,000 spectators.
Match Preview:
It has been a fixture of constant entertainment and important victories for the Merseysiders in recent years. From coming back from 2-0 down at half time to winning it 3-2 at the final whistle in 2008-09, to the second leg of the 2011-12 Carling cup semi final in Anfield when Craig Bellamy showed his former club what they were missing after selling him to Liverpool, five months prior, to the 3-2 victory at Anfield and
that Coutinho goal when we all thought number 19 was coming home, to the 4-1 victory at the Etihad where Roberto Firmino scored his first league goal for Liverpool, this fixture has always lived up to the hype.
Last season's games between these two clubs were enthralling encounters to say the least and the scoreline didn't reflect the quality of football provided. Gini Wijnaldum's header gave Jurgen Klopp's men a massive victory on new year's eve while the reverse fixture saw an end to end 1-1 draw that could have went anywhere (looking at you, Adam Lallana
). The two teams have, in my opinion, the two most entertaining managers in world football, and you can expect an open game with both teams trying to reach their 10th point in the campaign.
City started the season with a win against the newly promoted Brighton & Hove Albion, drew at home against Everton and nicked it at the end away at Bournemouth in a game which saw Raheem Sterling gets his second yellow for excessive celebrations of his winner, thus, missing the game against his former club. Liverpool started the campaign with a 3-3 draw at Watford, that should have been a win, however they recovered by beating Crystal Palace at home to a Sadio Mane winner, then demolishing Arsenal 4-0, in a game that showed everything that is good about The Reds under Jurgen Klopp.
Key Players:David Silva
He might be getting old, slower and he even shaved his head bald, but David Silva is still as classy as he has ever been for City, he is the player that I enjoy watching the most from this lot and despite his age (31 now), he is still at the heart of every City attack, dictating the tempo from midfield along with Kevin De Bryune. If Liverpool were to win this game, their midfield must do a good job of stopping these two from creating opportunities to Gabriel Jesus.
Sadio Mane
A lot was made out of the Phillipe Coutinho transfer saga in the summer and how Liverpool will miss their key man should Coutinho leave at the end of the window (which never happened), in reality though, Liverpool have barely missed Coutinho so far, in part because of how good their midfield operated, especially in the games against Hoffenheim and against Arsenal, but mostly it is down to how good Sadio Mane has been for Jurgen Klopp's men. He scored 3 goals in 3 league games for Liverpool, including an inside curler by his right foot from the left flank against Arsenal that should have been goal of the month, in my opinion, but also his movement and creativity alongside his two partners in crime Firmino & Salah, have confused opposition defenders to no end. Best case scenario of how good he is was against Hoffenheim when Julian Naglesmann had to make a change after half an hour to stop Mane from bombarding their right flank. Whether it is Walker or Danilo, whoever plays on the right for City has got a busy day ahead on Saturday.
