Manchester City v Wolves: Premier League – Live! | Soccer | Today Headlines

City make two changes from their last league game – Oleksandr Zinchenko for Kyle Walker, Gabriel Jesus for Phil Foden. It looks like an extra man in midfield for Wolves, with Joao Moutinho replacing Hwang Hee-Chan.

Manchester City (4-1-2-3) Ederson; Cancelo, Dias, Laporte, Zinchenko; Rodri; Bernardo, Gundogan; Jesus, Grealish, Sterling.
Alternates: Steffen, Walker, Ake, Stones, De Bruyne, Fernandinho, Foden, Palmer, Mahrez.

Wolverhampton Wanders (5-3-1-1) José Sa; Semedo, Kilman, Coady, Saiss, Ait-Nouri; Dendoncker, Neves, Moutinho; Traore; Jiménez.
Alternates: Ruddy, Hoever, Marcal, Boly, Podence, Cundle, Trincao, Fabio Silva, Hwang.

Arbitrator Jonathan Moss.

Styles make fights. Wolves aren’t quite the lifeblood of Manchester City’s scissors, but they are dangerous opponents for a Pep Guardiola side. The reasons are quite simple: the defense of the street (only the first three have conceded fewer goals this season), the cunning of Raul Jimenez and, above all, the spasmodic inplayability of Adama Traoré.

Traore produced two of the best performances of his career when Wolves overtook City in 2019-2020. Even last season, when City beat Wolves 3-1 and 4-1, they had to work pretty hard. The first of those matches was 2-1 after 90 minutes; the second was 1-1 after 79.

I realize I could reach, trying to convince myself that it won’t be another routine home win for City, full of lengths in which we – and the Wolves players – ruminate on the inevitable futility of the existence. City are starting to look menacing, and they came out on top for the first time this season when they beat Watford last weekend. But if you look a little closer, their home form in the league has been relatively poor. Since the start of the season with consecutive eviscerations from Norwich and Arsenal, their results at the Etihad have been 0-0, 2-0, 0-2, 3-0, 2-1. Ten points in five games: Pep out.

Wolves are in eighth place, the best of the Small 14s aside from West Ham, but their form isn’t great either. They have only scored once in their last five games, in a 1-0 win over the aforementioned Hammers, and suffered a nerve-racking loss to Liverpool last week.

In short, nobody knows anything, but we are about to find out.

To start up 12:30 p.m.