High Quality Battle

For the fourth time in the Premier League era, Man.City and Liverpool are battling it out for the top spot in the standings. This is the most intense confrontation of the tournament in many years. Man.City (28 points) is currently in the lead, 1 point ahead of Liverpool and both could lose their positions to Arsenal and Tottenham (both with 27 points). This encounter is not exactly a 6-point race, but it can still affect the rest of the season. Manager Jurgen Klopp is worried that Liverpool will face an early match (taking place at lunchtime in England) for the third time this season after the international break and having to play away. The reason is that Liverpool have more key players from non-European teams (Darwin Nunez, Luis Diaz, Alisson, Mohamed Salah, Alexis Mac Allister) than Man.City. This can affect the physical strength of the "Red Army" players due to having to travel long distances and constantly change time zones.

Trận chiến chất lượng cao - Ảnh 1. — Erling Haaland (Man.City, *left* ) and Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) are the key to the confrontation at Etihad Stadium tonight.

Frankly speaking, Man.City are rated higher when welcoming Liverpool when Etihad is their fortress. Up to now this season, the English champions have won all 7 home matches in all competitions, scoring 22 goals and conceding only 4. Meanwhile, Liverpool have encountered many problems every time they go away from home, losing points in 4/6 away matches in the Premier League and most recently losing to Toulouse in the Europa League group stage.

Home advantage could be a key factor in deciding the outcome of this big match. Therefore, coach Klopp will have to have a plan to restrain Man.City's strength at Etihad. Only 3 teams have won against Man.City this season: Wolves, Chelsea and Arsenal. If Wolves play low and wait for counter-attacks, Chelsea and Arsenal succeed by pressing high, forcing Man.City right on the opponent's field, breaking Guardiola's tiki-taka style of play. This is the way of playing that coach Klopp will have to pay attention to in order to achieve a good result.

Erling Haaland (Man.City) and Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) will be the key players in tonight's match, or more precisely, stopping them could be the key to opening up the winning opportunity for each team. Haaland (13 goals) and Salah (10 goals) are currently occupying the 1st and 2nd positions in the Premier League's "Top Scorer" list this season. Of which, Haaland has scored 9 goals in his last 6 appearances for Man.City in all competitions. But Liverpool is 1 of 2 teams that Haaland has faced while playing for Man.City and has not scored a goal in the English top flight.

Key absences such as John Stones and Kevin De Bruyne (Man.City), Andy Robertson and Thiago Alcantara (Liverpool) will affect the strength of each team, but it is difficult to reduce the expectation of a high-quality match with many goals. In the last 11 meetings between the two teams, there have been 43 goals (an average of 3.9 goals/match).