Manchester City Arsenal preview

Manchester City host Arsenal on Sunday at the Etihad. City will be hoping that they can bounce back from their 2-1 defeat to Newcastle mid-week. Fortunately for City Liverpool could only draw against Leicester and they are 5 points behind the leaders instead of 7. City need to beat Arsenal in order to cut the gap to two points, to put the pressure on Liverpool before they play on Monday night against West ham.

Arsenal beat Cardiff 2-1 on Tuesday, and with Chelsea losing 4-0 to Bournemouth, Arsenal went into 4th on goal difference. They will want to build on that and try to cement their place in the Champions league spot. Emery knows that if they lose to City then either Chelsea or United will overtake them, which is why there is extra motivation for the win.

City could be without first choice keeper Ederson as he suffered a bad cut against Newcastle. Mendy is still coming back to full match fitness, but this game might still be a little early for him. Arsenal lost Bellerin last week for up to 9 months which is a big blow. Sokratis is also out, but the good news for them is that Koscielny did not fracture his jaw and could be fit for the match. Mkhitaryan will also be assessed before the match to see if he can play any part.

Guardiola and Emery know each other quite well from their days as Barcelona and Valencia manager. However, Guardiola has the much better record with Emery never being able to beat his compatriot. They have faced each other 11 times, Guardiola won 7 and 4 draws were played out. Emery will be hoping that he can change that stat, but he knows it will be a difficult task, with so much riding on City to win and stay in the title race.

Key stats

• They met 43 times in the Premier League
• Arsenal won 23, City won 10, and 10 draws
• Last game they played was the first game of the season which City won 0-2