Opposition View: Man City Still A Force Despite Injuries

- LCFC Radio's opposition view comes from Stuart Brennan from the Manchester Evening News
- Brennan says Man City's recent form has dropped slightly following a defeat by Liverpool last month
- Live commentary of the encounter at Etihad Stadium is available from 4:30pm GMT on LCFC Radio

The Foxes are Man City’s guests at Etihad Stadium this weekend and the hosts will be aiming to stretch their lead at the Premier League summit to an extraordinary 16 points.

However, a 4-3 defeat by Liverpool last month has proven that Pep Guardiola’s men can be beaten and a recent 1-1 draw with Burnley highlighted once more that sides can hurt them defensively.

“It’s not been quite as good lately as it has been all season,” Brennan told LCFC Radio this week. “They’ve been unstoppable, winning game after game, and that’s slowed down a little.

“They lost at Liverpool and drew against Burnley [either side of victories over Newcastle United and West Bromwich Albion] but it couldn’t sustain itself at that kind of rate with these injuries.

“Even when they’ve not won games, the reason is usually because of something unusual like Raheem Sterling missing from close range like he did at Burnley.

“The performances are still very, very good but perhaps not world-class like they were before this period of form.

“Unusually, they were given three days off after Saturday’s match [at Burnley]. Pep has done that a couple of times in the past and he may be giving them a rest to recharge the batteries.”

Man City’s injury list includes Gabriel Jesus (knee), Leroy Sane (ankle), Benjamin Mendy (knee) and Fabian Delph (knee) and Brennan says they have started to miss the quartet.

“They have quite a large injury list,” he added. “When they named only six substitutes, the official line was that there wasn’t any more senior players and Pep was right.

“The Under-23s played the night before so he thought it would be better to rest them then just put them on the bench with no possibility of them actually playing at Burnley.

“The simple fact is that City’s squad isn’t actually that big compared to their direct rivals so it wasn’t a great surprise that they didn’t have enough players to fill the bench at Turf Moor.”

Live commentary of the clash is available from 4:30pm GMT for free on LCFC Radio with pre and post-match analysis also provided.