Next Saturday, 10th of January 2015, the current EPL champions Manchester City will travel to Liverpool to measure forces with an underachieving Everton at Goodison Park for round 21 of the English Premier League, on a match that the Citizens cannot afford to lose if they want to keep pressuring Chelsea at the top of the table and that the Toffees also need to win in order to put an end to their recent negative row of results.

Manchester City are definitely enjoying a fairly positive period on all competitions, as they have not conceded a single defeat on their last thirteen matches. The Citizens have, nevertheless, experienced some unexpected difficulties on their recent home matches from where, besides the surprising 2-2 draw against Burnley, they only managed to grant two narrow wins over Sunderland and Sheffield Wednesday. Last Sunday, Manuel Pellegrini’s men were forced to put in some extra work to overcome the Championship side of Sheffield Wednesday on a FA Cup match. The Owls scored first by the Austrian Youth International Atdhe Nuhiu and the Citizens only managed to bounce late in the match when Milner netted in both goals that allowed them to follow through in the competition.

The injury problems on the team’s attacking department is certainly slowing the Citizens but one way or another they are managing to counter the negative effect the injuries of Aguero and Dzeko could produce in the team. For the Goodison Park clash against Everton next Saturday, the Chilean manager will most certainly not be able to rely on the contribution of the both forwards mentioned above and on Kompany and Nastasic, who also remain sidelined due to injury.

As for Everton, the Toffees are having a season to forget so far as they are currently sitting at the 13th place of the EPL table just four points above the relegation zone. Such an underachieving overall performance is certainly being caused by the team’s splendid work at the UEFA Europa League that is surely causing some extra fatigue on Everton’s players.

The Toffees are on a negative row of four consecutive defeats and the match against the Citizens is probably not the best to put an end to such miserable results.

Judging by both sides’ recent performances, Manchester City are clearly favourites for the upcoming clash but if Everton find a way to exploit the visitors’ defensive frailties, they might be able to at least snatch a draw.

Everton

Stats: W-1 L-4 D-0

Recent Form - LLLLW

Manchester City

Stats: W-4 L-0 D-1

Recent Form - WWDWW

Possible Line-ups

Everton (3-4-3) – Robles - Distin - Jagielka - Barry - Besic - Coleman - Baines - Barkley - Mirallas - Lukaku - Naismith

Manchester City (4-2-3-1) – Hart - Sagna - Mangala - Demichelis - Kolarov - Fernando - Touré - Nasri - Milner - Silva - Jovetic

Prediction

Everton 1 Manchester City 2