Title chasing Manchester City host relegation-battling Wolves at Etihad Stadium.
With league leaders, Arsenal not in action until Sunday teatime, victory would see Man City cut their deficit in the title race to just two points.
Wolves meanwhile can move three points clear of the relegation zone with a win, and go 14th in the table if Leeds lose elsewhere.
Team News
Man City have no fresh injury concerns to report after their midweek win against Tottenham, as Kevin De Bruyne and others look for a return to the starting line-up.
Wolves have no fresh injury concerns to report following their FA Cup replay defeat to Liverpool, as Nelson Semedo and Hwang Hee-Chan leads several regulars looking to be recalled to the starting line-up.
Boubacar Traore (unspecified), Chiquinho, Sasa Kalajdzic (both knee) and Pedro Neto (ankle) remain ruled out.
When is Kick-Off?
Man City host Wolves at Etihad Stadium on Sunday 22 January in a 2pm GMT kick-off, albeit untelevised live in UK.
Stat Attack
- Man City have won each of their last five meetings against Wolves (W5).
- Wolves have won just one of their last eight Premier League visits to Man City (W1, D1, L6).
- City have kept clean sheets in two of their last three meetings against Wolves (W3), except for a 5-1 win at Molineux in May 2022.
- Erling Haaland has scored five goals in four of City’s last five league matches at home, in which he only failed to score against Brentford in November 2022.
- Daniel Podence has scored in three of Villa’s last four league matches (W2, D1).
Prediction
After a contrastable performance in both halves of Thursday’s comeback win against Tottenham, Man City now have to win here if want to put pressure on Arsenal in the title race but they will need to produce a clean performance after surprisingly suffering a dip in consistency lately.
Wolves meanwhile will be disappointed to be out of the FA Cup but they frankly failed to get going against Liverpool amidst a bright start, yet their end product against a robust defence let them down once they finally hit their stride so I do expect a response here.
City though will be favourites and will know that this is psychologically a must-win game otherwise they will need future luck to swing their way if want to defend their title, which unfortunately could mean Wolves having to bear the brute of any aggressive response here.
Julen Lopetegui though has enough quality to know how to set Wolves up to try and counter Man City but I just don’t see them getting a result here.
Prediction: Manchester City 2-0 Wolves
Result: Manchester City 3-0 Wolves
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