Manchester City vs Everton: EPL Match Preview, Predicted Line-ups and Dream11 Predictions

Manchester City vs Everton to wrap up 2022 with a home at the Etihad stadium in the Premier League on Saturday evening.

Match Details:

• Location: Manchester, England
• Stadium: Etihad Stadium
• Date: Saturday 31 December
• Kick-off Time: 8:30 PM IST
• VAR: Lee Mason
• Referee: Andy Madley

Manchester City vs Everton: Match Preview:

Pep Guardiola's side cantered back into top-flight proceedings with a victory over Leeds United on Wednesday night. A match which took the Sky Blues to within five points of leaders Arsenal was so laden with chances, City could afford to be grossly wasteful in front of goal and still run out as 3-1 victors.

Everton have been inefficient at the top end of the pitch all season. Only West Ham have underperformed their expected goals figure by a larger margin this term (squandering openings worth around six goals according to FBref). A slew of missed opportunities was painfully punished by Wolves in the 95th minute on Boxing Day, reducing the gap between the Toffees and the drop zone to just one point.

Team News:

Manchester City:

City's only notable absentees are both legacies of the winter World Cup. While Julian Alvarez slowly tears himself away from the celebrations in Argentina, Ruben Dias is nursing a hamstring injury sustained while representing Portugal.

Perhaps most worryingly of all for those without allegiance to City, Guardiola insists that the goal-greedy Erling Haaland is still 'not at his best' while he continues to recover from a foot problem he picked up in the Champions League.

Everton:

Conor Coady will once again be available after sitting out the league encounter with his parent club, Wolves, on Boxing Day. The England international may rekindle his partnership with James Tarkowski after Yerry Mina marked his return from injury with a goal but hobbled off in the second half.

Andros Townsend suffered a setback in his recovery from a serious knee injury and James Garner isn't expected to return from a back problem until February.

Dominic Calvert-Lewin is the most notable absentee for the goal-shy Toffees. The injury-prone striker is building back his fitness but Frank Lampard is wary of triggering another issue by hastily reintroducing his number nine. "The last thing we want to do is go too soon with him," Lampard warned.

Manchester City vs Everton: Head to Head:

There have been 143 meetings between City and Everton. The hosts have won 78 of those games while the visitors have won 68 times. There have been 47 draws between the two teams.

The home side have won their last 10 games in this fixture, a run dating back to 2017.

The visitors are without a clean sheet in their last 11 games in this fixture.

City have the best offensive record in the Premier League this season with a goal tally of 43.

Predicted Line-ups:

Manchester City Starting 11 (4-3-3): Ederson; Lewis, Stones, Laporte, Ake; Gundogan, Rodri, Bernardo; Foden, Haaland, Grealish.

Bench: Ortega, Akanji, Gomez, Walker, Cancelo, Phillips, Mahrez, De Bruyne, Palmer.

Everton Starting 11 (4-3-3): Pickford; Patterson, Coady, Tarkowski, Mykolenko; Iwobi, Gueye, Onana; Gordon, Maupay, McNeil.

Bench: Begovic, Godfrey, Holgate, Vinagre, Coleman, Davies, Doucoure, Gray, Calvert-Lewin.

MCI vs EVE: Dream11 Predictions: