Can Chelsea Hurt Manchester City?

It’s another weekend and after an eventful semi final carabao cup games during the week, premier league football is back.

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An exciting encounter between the blues of Chelsea and the blues of Manchester City comes our way today at 12:30 GMT.

Pep Guordiala and his men will be hosting the blues of Thomas Tuchel at the Etihad stadium for what can be considered as either a chance for a title challenge or a chance for Pep to run away with the title.

Manchester City are in a somewhat comfortable lead with 10 points separating them from second placed Chelsea after narrowly taking all three points from Arsenal some two weeks ago on new year day.

Chelsea have found themselves trailing after having too many draws in December and in January against Liverpool in probably their best performance this season.

In the reverse fixture this season at Stamford Bridge, Man City defeated Chelsea by a goal to nil. I was very disappointed in Chelsea’s performance that day because they played far too defensively. They didn’t offer any threat at all allowing City to play their game. It was a boring one sided game but my gut tells me we’ll have a more interesting fixture this time around🤞.

Let’s talk team news.

Manchester City must be praised for being one of the clubs recording few Covid cases. I don’t think it’s just luck but as a result of discipline from their players and staff. A lot of players have returned from injury as well with the likes of Foden and De Brunye.

Chelsea on the other hand have been hit hard with Covid and injuries. Reece James is out with a hamstring injury and Ben Chilwell is out for the rest of the season. Trevor Chalobah is out as well.

Kante and Silva returned from isolation last week. While it looked like Tuchel was getting his players back, he confirmed that has Christensen tested positive for the virus.

This leaves him with selection headache in defense.Because of that I think he should have a change in formation.

Formation and predicted XI.

I think Pep will go with his usual 4-3-3 formation with Ederson in goal and a back 4 of Dias, Laporte, Cancello and Walker. His midfield trio could comprise of Rodri, Bernardo Silva and Gundigan.
He could opt for a front 3 of Sterling, Kevin De Brunye and Phil Foden 🤔.

I think Tuchel should go with a change in formation especially with his wing backs missing. He should go with a 4-2-1-3 formation in my opinion. He used something similar to this against Spurs and it worked quite well.

Kepa will start in goal with a possible back 4 of Azpilicueta, Thiago Silva, Rudiger and Marcos Alonso. The midfield could consist of Kante, Kovacic and Mount. Tuchel could use a front 3 of Havertz, Ziyech and Lukaku.

I’m just speculating here and picking a starting XI was very difficult. Both managers could make me look very foolish 😅.

Score Prediction.

I expect a very intense exciting game between these 2 sides. I would even take a 10 goal thriller provided the game is exciting to watch😂.

Looking at this I think we’ll see a draw.

Manchester City 1- 1 Chelsea

Please leave your thoughts in the comments🧐.

Thank you.