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This is a fixture that Sky will be billing as a title decider. Despite our healthy lead over City, it’s far too early to call it that as we’re only at the beginning of December by the time the game kicks off. Still, it wouldn’t hurt for us to put even more daylight between the teams. A year ago, Jurgen announced that he would be stepping down at the end of the season. Such was the pressure of trying to go toe-to-toe with City with so much stacked in their favour that he couldn’t countenance trying to go again the following season. There was a physical and mental toll, but I think it was more that he was totally fed up with the media side, and completely at his wits end with PGMOL. Perhaps the return of Michael Edwards would mean relinquishing significant influence over the recruitment side, and he didn’t want that either. He’ll be taking up an Edwards-type role with the Red Bull set-up in the new year. The same stresses of the job are currently evident with Guardiola at City now. They and he are enduring their worst run since forever, and those scratches and cuts to his head and face I don’t believe are the result of self-harming (he joked about that but quickly backtracked) or a stress-induced reaction to what he has seen unfold in front of him, but rather due to an altercation in the dressing room or training ground. Despite his new contract, it appears that all is not well behind the scenes. They threw away a 3-goal lead against Feyenoord in midweek, and that on the back of 4 or 5 successive defeats in all competitions. Coincidentally, Rodri’s absence is considered to be a key factor but it can’t surely all be down to him being missing. Their midfield has been showing signs of legginess like we saw from our midfield in 2022, and they’ve a few defenders unavailable so are using others in defence. We know that from 2021. In the summer, they were almost as frugal as us in the transfer market. They brought in Savinho from Girona (no dodgy dealing there of course involving another club within the City Group) as well as bringing back Gundogan from Barcelona after a year. Alvarez was sold for big money to Atletico, and they got good fees for both Harwood-Bellis and Delap, from newly-promoted Southampton and Ipswich respectively. Southampton have given City a lot of money for academy players in recent years, having previously also signed Bazunu and Lavia. The issue is that while the cave troll is still banging in the goals, the others around him have not kicked on. That’s not our concern. Despite the two teams’ currently contrasting fortunes, we need a complete absence of complacency, and instead bring a mentality of wanting to step on City’s throats and squeeze, with no let up. We wait for news on Conor and Ibou’s knocks, but both Trent and Harvey are available and should be in the squad. Not sure if Ali, Fede or Diogo are going to be ready but hopefully they can take part in full training and thus become options for Slot. And hopefully the feverish atmosphere we got against Real Madrid is again to the fore. I want some new gifs and memes of Guardiola losing his shit. Oh, and some Noel Gallagher face-like-a-slapped-arse pics are also very welcome. How have our previous managers got on in their first home fixture against City/Abu Dhabi? It’s a very very good record. Half of it is against a mediocre club from Moss Side, and the other half is against an Emirati sportwashing project. Souness...28/12/1992...Liverpool 1-1 Man City (Rush) Evans...28/12/1994...Liverpool 2-0 Man City (Phelan og, Fowler) Houllier...09/09/2000...Liverpool 3-2 Man City (Owen, Hamann 2) Benitez...21/08/2004...Liverpool 2-1 Man City (Baros, Gerrard) Hodgson...N/A Dalglish...11/04/2011...Liverpool 3-0 Man City (Carroll 2, Kuyt) Rodgers...26/08/2012...Liverpool 2-2 Man City (Skrtel, Suarez) Klopp...02/03/2016...Liverpool 3-0 Man City (Lallana, Milner, Firmino) I don't ask for much. Maximum motivation, control, application, attitude and concentration from minute one. 3 points please. Get it done!