Manchester City have another Premier League match ahead of them this weekend.
After Jamie Carragher said City were out of the title race after they lost their fourth league game in a row against Liverpool, the Blues followed that up by beating Nottingham Forest 3-0 on Wednesday.
The Manchester club’s latest league outing sees them take on Crystal Palace away from home.
Looking ahead to this latest tie at Selhurst Park, let’s take a look at what the starting XI could look like for the away side.
Manchester City's Spanish manager Pep Guardiola gives instructions to Manchester City's German goalkeeper #18 Stefan Ortega from the touchline duri...
Photo by OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images
Man City predicted starting XI vs Crystal Palace
Starting in goal, after giving him his first league start of the season at Anfield, Pep Guardiola said Stefan Ortega could continue in net ahead of Ederson.
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With the German then doing exactly that in midweek and making a crucial save to help his side keep just their third clean sheet of the campaign, Ortega has done enough to warrant a place in the team again on Saturday.
At right-back, with Manuel Akanji starting there against Forest, the Switzerland international was taken off at halftime with a suspected injury to be replaced by club captain Kyle Walker.
Even though Guardiola didn’t rule Akanji out against Palace, it would be the safer option to play Walker there.
Similarly to Akanji, Nathan Ake had to be forced off the pitch in midweek and is now set for another spell on the sidelines.
This could then see Rico Lewis come back in the team to be deployed at left-back, with Josko Gvardiol moving next to Ruben Dias in the middle of the backline.
Moving into the midfield, the trio of Ilkay Gundogan, Kevin De Bruyne and Jack Grealish worked like a charm against Nuno Espirito Santo’s side on Wednesday, so it would make sense to keep that the same against Palace.
Specifically, Gundogan is one of the few central-midfielders City have fit at the moment, De Bruyne scored and assisted in his first start since September and Grealish was praised by Guardiola for his performance.
Another star performer in midweek was Jeremy Doku, who bagged City’s third of the night against Forest and was a constant attacking threat throughout – making him likely to also keep his place in the team.
Even though he hasn’t scored a goal in the club’s three previous league games, it would be very surprising if Erling Haaland isn’t in the starting XI on Saturday.
Finally, despite bagging his first league goal of the campaign just eight minutes into the Forest match, Bernardo Silva could find himself rested on this occasion with Savinho being brought back in to see if he can finally get his first City goal.
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