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The English Premier League is giving us one great season. Even though it will be a two-horse race for the title, it is still a very exciting year. One of those horses is Manchester City. The Citizens are set to face their city rivals in Manchester United and it is an important game. Even though they had a sizable lead, Liverpool is only six points and one game behind. As they look to continue their quest for the championship, here are our Manchester City predictions for the Manchester derby matchup vs Manchester United.
Manchester City predictions (Manchester Derby)
They will be able to contain Cristiano Ronaldo, even without Ruben Dias
Manchester City got the heartbreaking news that their star center back Ruben Dias is out for six weeks. He formed a partnership with Aymeric Laporte that kept City as the league's best defense, conceding just 17 goals in 27 games. Now, it will be time for others to step up and it will be a huge task for whoever is going to make up that defense. Of course, the biggest challenge will be containing Cristiano Ronaldo, United's star striker and one of the best players in the world. Without Dias, it will be a lot tougher, but City has enough great players to contain him.
Likely, Manchester City will start with John Stones next to Aymeric Laporte. Although Stones played just nine games this year and he is nowhere near as good as Dias, there should be no problems. Ronaldo is not the same player he was in Real Madrid, as his pace deteriorated. He mostly relies on being at the right place at the right time, so it will be on Stones and Laporte to cover him in the middle. The good thing for City is that they also have great players on both flanks in defense that can help contain other threats coming from Manchester United.
It will be Joao Cancelo and Oleksandr Zinchenko starting in the fullback slots for the Citizens. Manchester City also has Kyle Walker, but he has been playing increasing minutes as center-back lately. Both Zinchenko and Cancelo have the pace to keep up with the United wings. The bigger threat will be on the right flank, where Zinchenko will need to contain the surging Jadon Sancho. However, his play in limited minutes this year has been good enough to warrant a starting spot in the derby.
Manchester City's midfield will absolutely dominate the game
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While Manchester United has had a good run of form, led by the play of their midfield, this is not Brighton or Leeds they are facing. In the Manchester City lineup, their midfield is inarguably their strongest point. As they have no major injuries there, they should be touting their strongest trio. Rodri will hold down the fort, as the defensive midfielder. As many CDMs in world football know, this position is very underrated and Rodri is the prime example of that. If he was not as good as he really is, City would not be able to boast two creative midfielders to overload the attack with talent.
On one side, there will be Ilkay Gundogan. The German player has been amazing for the last few years for Manchester City. He is a stable midfielder that can dominate the game without many assists or goals behind him. He is the closest thing that City has to a box-to-box midfielder and while he is less proficient defensively, he is covered by one of the best defensive midfielders in the world. On the other side, City has superstar Kevin De Bruyne. While he has slowed down from the incredible campaign he had last season, he is still the main man for huge occasions.
Rounding up the midfield, Manchester City has two players that nominally play in the attacking third, but are midfielders more than attackers. Bernardo Silva is probably their best player this year, scoring 10 goals in 35 appearances. However, Silva is so much more than his statistics. He is incredibly creative and due to that, this City team really has that link from midfield to attack. He will be joined by Phil Foden, the City youngster that took the starting spot and does not want to let it go. He is yet to reach the level of his superstar teammates, but his runs from the right flank to the midfield and in the center are sometimes reasons why City gets so many goals.
It will be a fairly easy win for Manchester City
In all fairness, this is not much of a standings derby. Manchester City is the leader of the table, while their crosstown rivals are in a dire fight for the top four. Manchester United is currently fourth, just three points behind Chelsea. However, they have two more games played than the London Blues, and Arsenal, who are sixth right now, is two points back with three games to play to catch up to United. Even though they added Ronaldo and Sancho in the offseason, United will likely end outside of the top four and their season up until now has been very disappointing.
Manchester City, even without their star center back, is going to have an easy time. They already beat United at Old Trafford earlier in the season and while United has been playing better in the last few weeks, they just had a 0-0 draw with a relegation-bound Watford at home. This should be no challenge for the team full of superstars in City and it will likely be a rout, considering the fact that the Citizens have to avenge their recent defeat at Tottenham that let Liverpool come in even closer on the first spot in the league.
