City make nine changes for Leeds clash | OneFootball

Pep Guardiola has made nine changes from the starting XI that took on Leverkusen in midweek.

Returning are Gianluigi Donnarumma, Matheus Nunes, Josko Gvardiol, Ruben Dias, Nico O’Reilly, Bernardo, Phil Foden, Jeremy Doku and Erling Haaland.

Only Nico and Tijjani Reijnders retain their starting berths against Leeds United, with everyone bar Oscar Bobb dropping down to the bench.

Line-ups

CITY: Donnarumma, Nunes, Dias, Gvardiol, O’Reilly, Nico, Bernardo (C), Reijnders, Foden, Doku, Haaland

Subs:: Trafford, Stones, Ake, Marmoush, Cherki, Ait-Nouri, Savinho, Khusanov, Lewis

LEEDS UNITED:  Perri, Bogle, Justin, Rodon, Struijk, Ampadu, Tanaka, Gruev, James, Gnonto, Nmecha

Subs: Meslier, Byram, Gudmundsson, Bijol, Harrison, Aaronson, Okafor, Calvert-Lewin, Piroe

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Formation

It looks pretty straightforward on paper.

Donnarumma in goal, with Nunes and O’Reilly as full-backs.

Dias and Gvardiol in central defence, with Nico as the anchor midfielder just in front of the back four.

Attacking midfielders Reijnders and Bernardo will have Doku on the left wing and Foden on the right as their outlets, with, of course, Haaland our No.9.

CITY LOOK TO RESPOND

Two successive losses has somewhat taken the wind out of our sails.

A narrow loss away to Newcastle, followed by a disappointing midweek defeat to Bayer Leverkusen suggests the international break couldn’t have been timed any worse.

The Blues signed off with an impressive win over Liverpool, but the momentum we’d built going into the break dissipated on the return to club football.

Now, we have three games in the next eight days, starting with Leeds United today, Fulham on Tuesday and Sunderland next Saturday.

All three opponents will be a challenge, but they are also games that an on-song City can win.

If we can take nine points from these upcoming matches, everybody is going to feel a whole better going into a busy festive period.

Can Erling make history?

With 99 Premier League goals to date, Erling Haaland is just one shy of becoming the fastest player to reach a century of top flight strikes.

If he does score today, he will have reached the milestone in just 110 Premier League games - nothing short of incredible.

He already has 143 goals in 163 matches overall for the Blues and is racing up the Club’s all-time top 10 scorers chart.

How fitting if he could reach 100 against Leeds United, the team his father Alfie spent three seasons with just before Erling was born.

Fingers crossed for a striker who we are incredibly lucky to get to watch on a weekly basis.

Stats, facts & Milestones

City have won their last four Premier League games against Leeds, scoring 16 goals in the process. It’s as many victories as they had in their first 16 against the Whites in the competition (D5 L7).

Leeds have lost their last two away league games against City, going down 7-0 in 2021 and 2-1 in 2023. They last lost more consecutively at the Citizens between 1963 and 1968 (4).

City have won 23 of their last 25 Premier League games against promoted sides (D2), with their last such defeat coming at home to Leeds in April 2021.

Since losing their first home league game of the season against Spurs, City have now won each of their last five at the Etihad by an aggregate score of 16-2. They’re looking to win six consecutive home league games by at least 2+ goals for the first time since a run of eight between January-May 2023.

Leeds have lost five of their last six Premier League games (W1), including the last three in a row. They’ve scored first in their last two matches, but have never lost three in a row having opened the scoring each time.

Leeds have conceded at least once in each of their last nine Premier League games, having kept a clean sheet in two of their opening three matches this season.

Each of Leeds’ last four Premier League goals have been scored in the opening 15 minutes of games – they’ve netted more goals in this timeframe than any other side this season (4).

Leeds manager Daniel Farke beat City in the Premier League with Norwich back in September 2019. The only manager to beat the Citizens with two different promoted clubs is Bryan Robson (Middlesbrough in 1995-96 and West Bromwich Albion in 2004-05).

Erling Haaland’s next goal for City will be his 100th in the Premier League. He’s scored in each of his last five league games at the Etihad Stadium, only having a longer run between August-November 2022 (6).

All three of Lukas Nmecha’s Premier League goals have put Leeds United 1-0 up in the match. The only Leeds player whose first four goals in the competition were the opening goal of a game was David Wetherall between 1993 and 1994.