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We look ahead to Sunday’s Premier League game at Anfield with our Liverpool vs Man City prediction and preview. Are the Reds set to compound City’s misery?
Liverpool vs Manchester City: The Key Insights
- Liverpool are made the favourites by the Opta supercomputer, with the hosts given a 45.3% win probability.
- Man City have won just one of their last 21 Premier League away games against Liverpool.
- Pep Guardiola’s team are winless in six games in all competitions.
Life may well get worse before it gets better for Manchester City.
Pep Guardiola’s team were seemingly on course to bounce back when they led Feyenoord 3-0 in the Champions League on Tuesday. Yet, that game finished 3-3, as the Premier League champions’ winless run was extended to six matches across all competitions.
City’s capitulation saw them set a number of unwanted records. They became the first team in Champions League history to be leading a match by three goals as late as the 75th minute and fail to win. It was also the first time they’d not won a game in which they led by three goals since May 1989 against Bournemouth in the second tier (3-3). For Guardiola, it was the first time in his managerial career that he’d failed to win a match having led by three or more goals.
Let’s not forget that City have also lost their last three Premier League games, as many as they had in their previous 47 matches combined (W35 D9). They last lost four consecutive league games between April-August 2008, while they last did so in the same season between January-March 2007 (five).
According to the Opta supercomputer, they now have just a 12.6% chance of retaining the title.
So, a trip to Anfield to face Arne Slot’s rampant Liverpool – who are eight points clear at the top of the Premier League heading into the weekend – is hardly the match Guardiola would have wanted as he looks to get City back on course.
Liverpool, now the clear Premier League title favourites according to our model, come into this one on the back of beating Real Madrid 2-0 in the Champions League, with Alexis Mac Allister and Cody Gakpo on target as the Reds put the European champions to the sword.
The Guardiola-Jürgen Klopp rivalry lit up English football for the past eight years, but Slot has swiftly made this Liverpool team his own.
This will be the Dutchman’s first meeting with both Manchester City and Guardiola. None of Liverpool’s last six managers have lost their first league meeting with England’s reigning champions (W4 D2), not since Roy Evans’ 1-0 loss to Manchester United in 1993-94.
In his managerial career, Guardiola has only lost more games to Tottenham (nine) than he has Liverpool (eight). Indeed, he has won just six of his 22 meetings with the Reds (27%), his lowest win rate against any side he has faced more than five times in all competitions.
Liverpool’s only Premier League defeat this season was a 1-0 loss to Nottingham Forest at Anfield. They have won seven of their eight league games since then (D1), scoring at least twice in seven of those.
Mohamed Salah, who netted twice to propel Liverpool to a 3-2 comeback win over Southampton last week, made headlines this week when he claimed after the game he had yet to be offered any sort of new contract by the club – his current deal expires at the end of the season.
If this is to be Salah’s last campaign at Liverpool, he is doing his very best to go out on a high note. As well as having the most goals and assists combined in the Premier League this season (16), Salah’s goal involvements have also been worth a league-high 17 points to Liverpool this term.
Salah, who missed a penalty against Madrid on Wednesday, has scored seven times in the league against Man City for Liverpool. He needs just two more top-flight goals at Anfield to bring up his 100th for the Reds at their home ground.
Liverpool vs Manchester City Head-to-Head
City have won just one of their last 21 Premier League away games against Liverpool (D7 L13), beating them 4-1 in February 2021. They have not won at Anfield with fans in attendance since May 2003 (2-1).
Liverpool have won just one of their last nine Premier League games against City (D5 L3), a 1-0 home victory in October 2022.
The away side has won just six of the 54 Premier League meetings between Liverpool and City, the lowest percentage of any fixture to be played more than 30 times in the competition (11%).
Liverpool vs Man City Prediction
Perhaps not since Liverpool’s title-winning campaign in 2019-20 has there been such a gulf in form between these two rivals.
A win for Liverpool would see them go 11 points clear. In Premier League history, only three teams have overcome a deficit of more than 11 points to go on and win the title (Manchester United in 1992-93 and 1995-96, and Arsenal in 1997-98).
The onus really is on City, then, to snap their dismal run of form. But the Opta supercomputer makes Liverpool the favourites, giving them a 45.3% chance of winning.
City came out on top in 29.9% of the data-led simulations, while there is a 24.8% chance of a draw.
Liverpool vs Manchester City Predicted Lineups
Opta Power Rankings
The Opta Power Rankings are a global team ranking system. They assign an ability score to over 13,000 domestic football teams. This score is on a scale between zero and 100, where zero is the worst-ranked team in the world and 100 is the best team in the world.
Ahead of kick-off this weekend, here is the Opta Power Ranking for both sides.
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