Manchester City predicted starting XI to face Club Brugge | OneFootball

After sealing a 2-0 home victory against Burnley in their previous Premier League match thanks to goals from Bernardo Silva and Kevin De Bruyne, Manchester City now turn their attention to the Champions League with an away clash against Club Brugge on Tuesday evening next up for Pep Guardiola’s side.

Ahead of the match against the Belgian club, defender John Stones did not travel with the rest of the squad due to apparent personal reasons, as well as Ferran Torres who picked up an injury during the recent international break away with Spain.

Taking this into account and looking at the players who did travel to Belgium, here’s how we feel City will line up against Brugge with four changes made.

In goal, with Ederson being in contention to play in midweek after missing the Burnley game due to his recent involvement with Brazil shortly before the match against Sean Dyche’s side, we feel that Guardiola will start him in Belgium despite Zack Steffen managing to keep a clean sheet in his absence over the weekend.

For the defence, with Stones missing, we can see Guardiola recalling Ruben Dias to the starting XI alongside Aymeric Laporte after the Portuguese ace only came on as a second-half substitute against Burnley.

At full-back, we think Guardiola will put Joao Cancelo on the left ahead of Nathan Ake, leaving Kyle Walker to come back into the team in his favoured right-back position.

In midfield, we suspect the manager will stick with the same three that started against Burnley with weekend goalscorers De Bruyne and Silva on either side of Rodri.

For their attacking line, we think Guardiola could opt for Gabriel Jesus ahead of Riyad Mahrez in the right-wing position if he feels the Brazilian is ready to play following his recent international duty period alongside Ederson.

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On the left flank, with Jack Grealish being an unused substitute at the weekend and the fact that the £72m-rated Phil Foden didn’t have a great individual performance against Burnley with SofaScore giving him a match rating of 6.8/10, we think Guardiola could swap the pair allowing Grealish to come back into the side.

Finally, we think Guardiola will stick with Raheem Sterling through the middle despite his lack of goals against Burnley. He has apparently impressed the City boss in that position in the past.

Whether Guardiola goes with this exact starting XI that we have predicted or not, we feel as though the club will undoubtedly be searching for revenge after they lost their previous Champions League match against Paris Saint-Germain.