Predicted Starting Line-Up: Chelsea vs Manchester City (Premier League)

Pep Guardiola’s starting line-up could prove decisive when his Manchester City side travel to Stamford Bridge for the opening weekend of Premier League fixtures.

While it’s common knowledge that the Spaniard prefers working with a smaller squad than most of his peers, City’s boss has been left short by an unfortunate injury to Oscar Bobb, who suffered a bone fracture in training this week.

Guardiola will once again be squaring up against a former colleague – this time Enzo Maresca, who has endured a disjointed pre-season with Chelsea and will be hoping to kickstart his Premier League stint with a victory.

But predicting Manchester City’s line-up may not get much tougher all season; many players have only recently returned from their holidays and some key stars have not had meaningful minutes at all since the European Championship concluded in July.

Other than Bobb, who is rumoured to be targeting a pre-Christmas return, City can theoretically pick from a full squad of players – though only Guardiola and his staff will know which members of the squad are ready to start.

Here is how we think Manchester City will line-up in west London on Sunday afternoon, as the Sky Blues begin their latest Premier League title defence!

Predicted XI

One player who need not worry about his place in the side is Ederson, who started the FA Community Shield against Manchester United, and is nailed on (freak injury aside) to do the same against Chelsea.

The back-line gets somewhat trickier. Kyle Walker is likely to be handed his first start of the season ahead of Rico Lewis, with the veteran’s pace and physicality a big help against the likes of Mykhaylo Mudryk or – potentially – former teammate Raheem Sterling.

Ruben Dias started the FA Community Shield at Wembley last weekend as well, and there is certainly no reason why his partner Manuel Akanji should not also line-up at Stamford Bridge this time around.

As for left-back, Josko Gvardiol has had a longer pre-season than Nathan Ake and so the Croatian is our pick to start there.

With Rodrigo ruled out of the action for this one, having not yet returned to first-team training despite reporting for medical and media duties this week, we anticipate that Mateo Kovacic could hold down the lone defensive midfield slot.

Bernardo Silva should be ready to start after his heroics at Wembley, and we expect Kevin De Bruyne to join him despite not featuring much at all since Belgium’s European Championships exit.

Should either miss out, we may very well see Nico O’Reilly entrusted in his deep-lying midfield role alongside Kovacic, having impressed Pep Guardiola throughout the club’s non-competitive schedule this summer.

One forward is an easy pick – Erling Haaland – who will doubtless already be thinking about a third consecutive Golden Boot, in a feat that has so far only ever been achieved by Alan Shearer and Thierry Henry.

Oscar Bobb was a certainty to join him this weekend, but if there is a tiny, silver lining to the brilliant Norwegian’s freak injury sustained in training this week, it may be a full competitive debut for Savinho on the right.

Jeremy Doku is our pick to start on the left, with Jack Grealish’s fitness a possible doubt after a very encouraging pre-season. The England international was absent from the Community Shield, but has since returned to training ground activities.

Starting XI: Ederson; Walker, Dias, Akanji, Gvardiol; Kovacic, Bernardo, De Bruyne; Savinho, Haaland, Doku.

Substitutes: Ortega, Lewis, Ake, McAtee, O’Reilly, Kovacic, Nunes, Grealish, Foden.