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

Manchester City will look to continue a perfect start to the season when they visit West Ham United on Saturday evening.

After winning the FA Community Shield for the first time since 2019, Pep Guardiola’s side took six Premier League points from a possible six against Chelsea and Ipswich Town.

However, with the campaign’s first international break looming, thoughts will be on keeping the City squad fit and healthy as much as they are on claiming another win against Julen Lopetegui’s new team.

Manchester City are unbeaten in their last 19 matches against the Hammers, and clinched the Premier League title with a 3-1 win over West Ham at the Etihad Stadium May, after Phil Foden’s stunning brace and Rodri’s second-half strike.

Saturday’s clash could provide Rodri with his first minutes of the campaign following a hamstring injury, although Foden is set to miss the weekend’s visit to the London Stadium due to a continued fitness problem.

Ahead of Saturday evening’s clash in east London, here’s how we predict Manchester City will line up against West Ham!

Ederson remains the easiest name to predict on the team sheet for Premier League games, even though Stefan Ortega transfer whispers from earlier in the window ended up coming to nothing.

It would be a crime for Rico Lewis – who has just recieved a call-up to the senior England squad – to lose his place after a superb beginning of the season, so Kyle Walker may have to wait a couple more weeks to get his first City start of the campaign.

Ruben Dias and Manuel Akanji are similarly hard to break up, although Guardiola has plenty of options in central defence should he wish to rotate. At left-back, Josko Gvardiol is the favourite to keep his place ahead of Nathan Ake.

Rodri has only returned to training very recently and a start seems unlikely, so Mateo Kovacic will have the chance to continue his fine form after ‘feeling much better’ according to Guardiola in his pre-match press conference.

Kevin De Bruyne and Bernardo Silva will both be key to any success City strive for this season and are likely to start together once again in this one.

Erling Haaland may have yet another record on his mind after scoring four times in the last two games, and he will surely start in London with one eye on breaking his own best-ever tally of 36 league goals.

Many expected Phil Foden to slot back into the side against Ipswich Town, but the PFA Player of the Year ‘still doesn’t feel good’ according to Guardiola and will probably need to wait until September for his first start of the new campaign. That almost certainly means another outing for the electric wing pairing of Jeremy Doku and Savinho.

Predicted XI: Ederson, Lewis, Dias, Akanji, Kovacic, De Bruyne, Bernardo, Doku, Haaland, Savinho

Substitutes: Ortega, Carson, Walker, Ake, Stones, Rodri, O’Reilly, McAtee, Gundogan, Foden, Grealish/