Are Manchester City being overlooked as Premier League title candidates?
A lot of the recent spotlight has been on Liverpool, considering the champions have lost three top-flight matches in a row for the first time since February 2021, with many thereby anointing league leaders Arsenal as overwhelming favourites.
However, considering Man City have been champions in six of the last eight seasons, they are very much in this race.
Rodri-Manchester-City
Pep Guardiola's team have yielded 13 points from their last five league outings, going in search of a fourth straight league win when they take on Aston Villa on Sunday.
Ahead of this one, the Sky Blues have actually lost their last two visits to Villa Park, failing to win any of their last three outings there, despite a sequence of five successive victories in Birmingham beforehand.
If the Citizens are to get back to winning ways in the Midlands, should Guardiola boldly drop one of his most loyal disciples and start a forgotten star instead?
Bernardo Silva's Manchester City importance
Just in case anyone was doubting Bernardo Silva's importance to Manchester City, he was on target at Estadio de la Cerámica on Tuesday night, heading home the second goal that rather cemented three Champions League points against Villarreal.
This was his 418th appearance for the club, only 13 men have ever made more, 18 behind Willie Donachie and his namesake David Silva, who sit ninth and tenth on the all-time list.
Bernardo himself has now scored 73 goals and registered 74 assists for the Sky Blues, while he is the player who has made the most appearances under Guardiola in his entire managerial career, clear of Kevin De Bruyne, Ederson and İlkay Gündoğan, all of whom moved on to pastures new this summer.
Still only 31 years old, there are discussions about Silva's role in the current Man City side, given that he has not started any of the last three Premier League matches, before returning to the lineup in Eastern Spain on Tuesday.
bernardo-silva-man-city-premier-league
So, the Portuguese international may well once again be left on a Premier League bench come Sunday afternoon, given that Guardiola needs to make space in his team for another sensation.
Guardiola must start Manchester City's 'freak'
So far this season, Manchester City have been rather over-reliant on the goals of Erling Braut Håland; his tally of 15 goals already accounts for 65% of their entire tally across the Premier League and Champions League.
However, could the return of Omar Marmoush help ease this attacking burden?
Marmoush-Man-City
The Egyptian suffered a knee injury during Egypt's World Cup qualifier against Burkina Faso in Ouagadougou in September, so had not been seen since, until coming off the bench for a brief four-minute cameo at El Madrigal on Tuesday.
His return is certainly a major boost considering that last season, for two different clubs, he was one of the most in-form strikers in Europe, as the table below documents.
Top scorers in 2024/25*
Player
Kylian Mbappé
Mohamed Salah
Robert Lewandowski
Harry Kane
Mateo Retegui
Alexander Isak
Erling Braut Håland
Omar Marmoush
Ousmane Dembélé
Serhou Guirassy
Patrik Schick
Ante Budimir
Mason Greenwood
*in Europe's top five leagues
Stats via FBref
As the table documents, only five men across Europe's top five leagues scored more league goals than Marmoush last season, an impressive feat considering the Egyptian changed clubs in January.
Shortly after arriving at the Etihad, he scored a hat-trick against Newcastle, before securing the Premier League Goal of the Season award courtesy of this absolute rocket against Bournemouth in May.
On top of his £59m transfer fee, Marmoush is the club's third-highest earner, currently pocketing a reported £295k-per-week, behind only the aforementioned Håland and Silva.
Journalist António Mango labelled him a "well-rounded... freak", international teammate Mohamed Salah heralded him as a "great player with a lot of talent", while former Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger described him as "mobile" and "powerful", impressed by the "special" talent's adaptability and versatility.
Marmoush is not only a goalscorer, proving during his short Manchester City career so far that he can get involved in build-up play as if he was a world-renowned attacking midfielder, while also capable of running in behind, thereby creating space for others.
Well, on Sunday, Guardiola will come up against an Aston Villa side who will press ferociously at times and defend with a high line but, as noted by Ali Tweedale of Opta's the Analyst, Unai Emery's team are susceptible to transitions, often caught out by opposition counter-attacks due to the fact that their offside trap, once the best in Europe, is no longer watertight.
axel-disasi-aston-villa (2)
Thus, while Bernardo offers technical brilliance, this may be a game best suited to Guardiola's direct attackers.
With that in mind, Jérémy Doku and Savinho appear the obvious choices to start out-wide, the latter rewarded for his scintillating display at the Cerámica this week, having looked 'Leroy Sane-esque' on the night.
Through the middle, Marmoush should be chosen to complete the attacking trident, getting forward to support Håland in a second striker role, because his profile is best suited to causing the Villans all sorts of problems, and his return could be a serious game-changer in the title race in general.