Aston Villa 2-1 Manchester City: Key statspublished at 14:56 21 December
14:56 21 December
Image source, Getty Images
Manchester City have already lost nine games in all competitions this season. Only in 2019-20 (12) and 2016-17 (10) has a side managed by Pep Guardiola lost more matches in a season (both with Manchester City).
They are also without a win in five consecutive Premier League away games (D1 L4) for the first time under Pep Guardiola, last failing to win more consecutive away matches in December 2015 (6) under Manuel Pellegrini.
Aston Villa 2-1 Manchester City - send us your thoughtspublished at 14:25 21 December
Sutton's predictions: Aston Villa v Manchester Citypublished at 11:34 21 December
11:34 21 December
Chris Sutton is making predictions for all 380 Premier League games this season, against a variety of guests.
For week 17, he takes on Reverend & the Makers singer Jon McClure.
Sutton's prediction: 1-1
Aston Villa are 10 points worse off than the same stage of last season, when they were in second place with 35 points from 16 games.
This time, they are seventh and if you look at their results in the Premier League so far then, apart from when they saw off Fulham in October, they have only beaten teams in the bottom half of the table.
I don't want to call them flat-track bullies but they are only getting wins against the weaker teams.
Maybe we have to put Manchester City in that bracket too at the moment, though?
In terms of form over the past eight games then only Leicester and Southampton have picked up fewer points than Pep Guardiola's side.
I keep thinking they will kick back into life, but they actually seem to be getting worse. Everyone is trying to come up with the reason for their poor results - injuries or ageing players, and so on - but they are making basic errors in games and killing themselves.
The smart move for me and anyone else making predictions would be to just back City every week now, because eventually they will come good - but I've not seen anything to suggest it will happen here.
The only thing they won last weekend was 'The Simulation Game' on 606 thanks to Kyle Walker's behaviour against Manchester United. I just hope he is all right to play this weekend.
So, I am certainly not going to say they will win at Villa Park, or keep a clean sheet, but then Villa have not really convinced me to back them either.
McClure's prediction: 2-1
I can't see past Villa here - I don't know where City's next win is going to come from. Even Sheffield Wednesday [who McClure supports] would give them a game at the minute.
Manchester United v Bournemouth: Did you know?published at 15:10 20 December
15:10 20 December
Image source, Getty Images
If Manchester United fail to beat Bournemouth, it will be the first time they have been in the bottom half of the table at Christmas since 1989-90 (12th).
Amorim on Rashford, Mount's injury and signs of improvementpublished at 13:35 20 December
13:35 20 December
Manchester United boss Ruben Amorim has been speaking to the media before Sunday's Premier League game against Bournemouth (kick-off 14:00 GMT).
Here are the key lines from his news conference:
Amorim said Marcus Rashford is available for Sunday's game, but "it is the same thing [that has seen him left out in consecutive games]."
Midfielder Mason Mount has seen a specialist and will be sidelined for "several weeks." Amorim added: "I don't know the exact date, but it is going to be long. It is part of football and we continue."
On Mount being injury-prone and solving it: "That is not my department. What I can do is teach him to play our game while he is recovering and to give him that time to think about different things."
He said the schedule does not help players who are coming back from injuries as there is no time to train and "it makes it hard to recover for the games".
Amorim said the pile up of games had a similar impact on Victor Lindelof, who was forced off against Tottenham on Thursday. The United boss added: "He was training well, recovering as he should do before a game but the game is a completely different world so they need more time to train."
On what is going well and not so well so far: "I think we are improving near the opponent's box. We have had some games where we were without real threat but we can shoot, we are near the goal and you really feel it. It is a good thing in our team."
He said his team are "faster, pressing more and both the physicality and the understanding of the game is improving."
On Antony: "He needs more confidence. He is working hard and he is trying. I will help him to be a better player."
In response to what will help him and his players: "Training. That's simple. We are rotating players and when you rotate players then it is hard to work on every connection. If you always have a different guy next to you in that position, then it is hard to work with them. If we have more time, we will use it to train the team. That's all."
Guardiola on Dias injury, City's form and Aston Villapublished at 13:13 20 December
13:13 20 December
Sarah Rendell BBC Sport journalist
Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola has been speaking to the media before Saturday's Premier League game against Aston Villa (kick-off 12:30 GMT).
Here are the key lines from his news conference:
Key defender Ruben Dias will miss the Christmas period: "[He will be out for] three or four weeks. It was a muscular injury. [After] 75 minutes against Manchester United, he felt something. He is so strong and he stayed on the pitch and now he is injured."
Fellow defenders on Manuel Akanji and John Stones: "Manu and John are back training over the past two days, which is good for us." Guardiola added he is unsure if they will be able to start on Saturday.
Guardiola does not think any players will leave during the winter transfer window. However, he was uncertain about the future of players whose contracts expire next summer: "I don't know - that will be at the end of the season. At the end of the season, we will see the situation. What I want is my players back [from injury]. My feeling is the squad is really good - it is not if they are good or bad players. We lost two important figures for a while. At the end of the season the club and myself will decide what is best for the team"
On handling tough times: "I handle the good moments - I handle good the bad moments. I have had bad ones in my career as a manager but we were able to come back and now it takes longer. I take experience with that. I have had 40 days of bad days in terms of results. That is the truth when you compare to eight years which is much better. There have been eight years of incredible [results] and now we have 40-45 days of [bad results]."
On his mood: "I am fine. I am a normal person with feelings like all of us. When a situation is going well, we are better and when it is not going well professionally, we are more [focused] on what we have to do."
On if he learned anything from City's loss last time they played at Villa Park: "When they came back here, we beat them 4-1. [Do] you have to analyse all the times we drop or lose points? We win more than we lose. Of course we lost there - they were better by far. They came here - we were better. Why do you have to compare what happened there? The past is the past. This is a new moment [and] you have to deal with it."
On how well Villa have balanced Premier League and Champions League commitments this season: "I'm not surprised. Top, excellent manager. [They had good success] qualifying for the Champions League and the results in the Champions League speak for themselves. They are handling it well because when I have been in many clubs handling both competitions, they have done really well."
'I don't think Rashford ticks PSG boxes right now' - Laurenspublished at 12:12 20 December
12:12 20 December
Image source, PA Media
French football journalist Julien Laurens, speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live's Euro Leagues podcast about Marcus Rashford and whether Paris St-Germain would be a realistic transfer destination for the Manchester United forward if he were to leave in January:
"I don't think so. There was contact before when Kylian Mbappe was at the club. Rashford and Mbappe are quite close. His brother, who is also his agent, travelled to Paris and met Nasser Al-Khelaifi and all the big people at the club.
"I think at the time it was maybe more to almost force the hand of Manchester United to give him a new deal, which they did eventually. But it was never going to happen back then to start with.
"Right now, especially if they let Randal Kolo Muani go, it's true that PSG would maybe get another forward.
"I just don't think that Marcus Rashford, right now, ticks the boxes that Luis Campos and Luis Enrique want."
Image source, Getty Images
