Liverpool v Manchester City preview: form, team news and our pick

Form and table after five rounds

The two sides arrive by very different routes. City have won all five league games, though three of them were by a single goal. Liverpool have drawn three of five and have yet to win a league game at Anfield this season.

Liverpool's league run reads 2–2 away at Newcastle, 2–2 at home to Nottingham Forest, 2–0 away at Ipswich, 0–0 at home to Fulham and 1–0 away at Bournemouth, where Alexander Isak scored the only goal. Add a Champions League win over Atlético Madrid and a Carabao Cup win over Tottenham and the unbeaten run reaches seven games in all competitions. The home results are the odd part: two games at Anfield, two draws, two goals scored.

City opened with a 2–1 win over Bournemouth, then won 4–1 at Crystal Palace, beat Coventry 1–0, won the derby 1–0 at Old Trafford and finished the block with a 5–3 win over Sunderland. Conceding three at home to Sunderland is the one result that sits oddly with the rest; in the other four games City conceded twice in total.

Head-to-head: the last five meetings

The recent record favours City. They won all three meetings last season, the last of them by four clear goals.

Two things stand out. Four of the five games ended with one side keeping a clean sheet, and only the February game at Anfield saw both teams score. The other is that the away side won two of the five, so the venue is less of a guide than it looks. Erling Haaland scored a hat-trick in the 4–0 cup win. Neither manager was in charge of these sides for any of those matches, so the head-to-head tells us more about squads than about tactics.

Team news and absences

Only reported news is listed here, with the date it came out. Line-ups are usually confirmed about an hour before kick-off, and the betting moves fast when they are.

Liverpool

• Cody Gakpo hurt his ankle in the Netherlands' 2–1 win over Serbia on 27 September and went for a scan at the club's training centre. Reports from 28 September to 5 October expect him to miss the game; Liverpool have not published a return date.
• Alexander Isak, scorer of four league goals so far, left the Sweden squad with a thigh problem. Sweden coach Graham Potter called it small but said it ruled him out of their remaining matches (28 September). He is a doubt.
• Hugo Ekitike (Achilles), Conor Bradley (knee) and Giovanni Leoni (cruciate ligament) are long-term absentees. Federico Chiesa has a back problem and was described on 28 September as having a realistic chance of making this game.

Manchester City

• Phil Foden serves the last match of a three-game domestic ban for his red card at Old Trafford on 13 September.
• Haaland left Norway's 2–1 defeat to Portugal after 67 minutes. Norway coach Ståle Solbakken said on 5 October the change was about fatigue, not injury. City had not given their own update by the time we published.
• Nico O'Reilly withdrew from the England squad and returned to City; no diagnosis or timetable was given (2 October).

Team news shapes any Liverpool vs Man City prediction more than form this week, and the balance of losses hurts Liverpool more. Without Gakpo and possibly Isak, and with Ekitike out for months, Iraola could be short of three of his main forwards. City lose Foden's creativity but keep their central striker if Solbakken's account holds.

How the market should price it

We do not quote operators' odds on this page. The prices below are our own estimates of where a fair market should sit before team news is confirmed. Use the odds calculator to turn any price you see into a percentage and compare.

Before writing our Liverpool vs Man City prediction we set out the prices we would expect. The result market is close to a three-way split. Home advantage at Anfield pulls the price towards Liverpool, City's perfect record pulls it back, and the draw sits higher than it would in an ordinary fixture because two unbeaten teams rarely take risks in the first hour. On goals, the head-to-head points to one-sided games; both clubs' league form points to more goals than that. Our guides to both teams to score and over 2.5 goals explain how those two lines are built.

Our Liverpool vs Man City prediction

Our pick: Manchester City draw no bet, around 2.05 (our estimate). City have the better squad available on Sunday and the better recent record in this fixture. Liverpool's attack is the area hit hardest by injury, and their two home league games this season produced two draws and two goals. Draw no bet returns the stake if Anfield produces a third, which is the outcome we rate as City's main danger rather than a Liverpool win.

Backup: both teams to score, no, around 2.00 (our estimate). Four of the last five meetings had a clean sheet. City have kept two in five league games; Liverpool have kept three. With Liverpool short of forwards, a game in which only one side scores looks more likely to us than the market's usual lean towards goals in a big match. Our Liverpool vs Man City prediction would change if Isak is passed fit and starts.

Both are opinions. A sound view at a poor price is still a poor bet, so check the number on offer against our estimate before you commit, and stake only what you can afford to lose.

Where to watch

In the UK the game is on Sky Sports. Elsewhere, Premier League rights are sold country by country to national broadcasters, and the league's own channels carry highlights, clips and match information after the final whistle.

Some betting sites also stream selected matches to players with a funded, logged-in account. We have noted the sites where that feature exists, though which games appear depends on the site and on where you are, so look at the schedule before relying on it.

After the match

This preview will be updated with the result after the final whistle.

Related pages

The wider round, including the rest of Matchweek 6 and the title race, is on our Premier League page. For other leagues and the main football markets, start at the football betting hub, and every match we preview this week is collected on the predictions page. If you want to bet on this Liverpool vs Man City prediction without uploading documents, our list of no verification betting sites sets out where each operator puts its verification threshold.

Bitcasino.ioSportsbook

US$2,500When ID can be asked

Open