The second Manchester derby of the season takes place on Saturday as we travel to the Etihad Stadium looking to deny Pep Guardiola’s side the Premier League title for at least another week.
Manchester City are coming off the back of a 3-0 humiliation at the hands of Liverpool in their Champions League quarter-final first leg on Wednesday and have the second leg coming up this Tuesday.
We’ve had the week off to prepare for this game and hopefully add salt into the wounds of what has been a tough week so far for our neighbours.
Here is the team I think Jose Mourinho will send out tomorrow:
Goalkeeper: David de Gea
Although Loris Karius wasn’t tested midweek you can expect David de Gea to have a busy game as Manchester City look to take their disastrous midweek performance out on us. Fortunately we have the best goalkeeper in the world between the sticks.
Defence: Antonio Valencia, Eric Bailly, Chris Smalling, Ashley Young
With Phil Jones being sidelined for a while Chris Smalling can expect to start alongside Eric Bailly in a back four. Ashley Young could be up against Bernardo Silva at left-back after the Portuguese forward was an unused substitute midweek. Leroy Sane had a shocker at Anfield and I can see him being rested with Raheem Sterling coming in on the left up against Antonio Valencia.
Midfield: Nemanja Matic, Scott McTominay, Paul Pogba
Nemanja Matic will be the holding midfielder of course, looking to prevent Kevin De Bruyne and David Silva from feeding the front three. I think we’ll also see Scott McTominay back in the starting lineup to help support the Serbian international. The young midfielder has looked more experienced than he is this season so I don’t see the occasion getting the better of him at all. Paul Pogba will face competition from the likes of Juan Mata to start the more attacking central midfield role but as he’s up for big games he should get the start.
Attack: Jesse Lingard, Romelu Lukaku, Alexis Sanchez
Romelu Lukaku will be looking to bully the overrated Nicolas Otamendi in the City defence, just like he did to Dejan Lovren a few weeks ago. I see Jesse Lingard getting the start ahead of Juan Mata as Jose doesn’t always play the Spaniard in the big clashes because of his lack of defensive work. Alexis Sanchez faces competition from Marcus Rashford and Anthony Martial to start down the left. If the Chilean does start we cannot afford for him to go missing.
Here’s how I see us lining up:
