Man City team news vs Aston Villa and predicted lineup | OneFootball

Manchester City will be looking to continue their winning run when they travel to face Aston Villa in the Premier League on Sunday at 2pm.

The Citizens have won their past three league games and four of their past five, only drawing with Arsenal during that time.

Man City predicted lineup vs Aston Villa

Man City (4-1-4-1): Donnarumma; Nunes, Dias, Ake, O’Reilly; Gonzalez; Savinho, Foden, Reijnders, Doku; Haaland.

Pep Guardiola’s side are now up to second in the league just three points behind Arsenal.

But they will be wary of their trip to Villa Park. Man City have lost their last two away league games against Aston Villa.

Man City team news vs Aston Villa

Some Man City fans will have been worried to see Nico Gonzalez come off with an injury in the midweek win over Villarreal. The Citizens are already set to be without Rodri through injury, though his layoff is expected to be a very short one.

But Guardiola quickly allayed fears, saying it was just a knock. So Gonzalez will likely start this weekend, with Mateo Kovacic staying on the bench.

Guardiola did rotate a bit in midweek, handing starts to the likes of John Stones, Bernardo Silva, Rico Lewis and Josko Gvardiol.

Gvardiol had dropped out of the starting for last weekend’s win over Everton in favour of Nathan Ake, with the Dutchman making his first league start of the season. But given the fact that Gvardiol started in midweek, we could see Ake return here.

The Croatian had actually started at left-back, but Nico O’Reilly should return to that spot. Abdukodir Khusanov is out with an injury.

Man City’s interesting finishing

Man City are the top scorers in the Premier League this season, scoring 17 goals. Erling Haaland is the top scorer in the league too, netting 11 goals. That’s a heavy reliance on one scorer.

But that’s not the only interesting stat when it comes to Man City’s goalscoring.

The Citizens have outperformed their Expected Goals total this season, scoring their 17 goals from an xG of 14.6. That’s the fifth-best overperformance in the league so far. And they sit third overall for xG.

But Man City are also among the worst five teams for shot placement. Guardiola’s side have posted 12.29 xG on Target — a regression of -2.31 from their xG. Even Haaland has 7.51 xGOT from 8.69 xG, so he has actually been making his chances of scoring worse based on where he is placing his shots.