It will not be easy, but we reckon that Pellegrini and co will get their league season back on track and put their West Ham disappointments to one side.
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Silva has performed only light training duties in the last 48 hours and the Citizens don’t want to take any unnecessary risks with the 29-year-old.
The South Korea global, who joined Tottenham Hotspur from Bayer Leverkusen near the end of the summer transfer window, netted two goals in the Europa League group-stage clash with Qarabag of Azerbaijan nine days ago before scoring the victor in Sunday’s Premier League encounter against Crystal Palace.
Will Ben Davies (centre) be among the Tottenham players taking on Manchester City?
“We had a couple of losses recently but we had a great reaction in midweek at Sunderland and now we go into a very hard game at Tottenham but hopefully we can carry the momentum from Tuesday’s game and come away with a win“, Zabaleta said to his club’s website.
The home side has on the other hand failed to win in their opening four matches, but have taken maximum six points from their last two outings, against Sunderland and Crystal Palace, and now welcome City in high spirits. He scored all of City’s five goals against them last season, and has eight in his last four against Spurs. It was a result that ended their 100% start to the Premier League season, having won all five of their previous outings.
The global break seems to have done wonders for Spurs as they will look for their third consecutive win on Saturday.
The match of this weekend’s round of fixtures is an early kick-off on Saturday night, with title favourite Manchester City seeking to bounce back from a shock 2-1 home defeat to West Ham in the last match. Robbie Keane would double the lead in the 19th minute, while Christian Ziege gave the home side a three goal advantage from a free kick.
Saturday’s match is important for another Spurs midfielder, Tom Carroll, who is getting his chance to start after injuries to Dele Alli and Ryan Mason.
Aguero’s goal in Manchester City’s 1-0 win in May was the striker’s 10th in seven appearances versus Tottenham.
David Silva has provided the most number of assists(4) in the Premier League this season. Year after year, City fans would travel to White Hart and leave with their tails firmly between their legs.
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Manchester City: Hart, Sagna, Kompany, Otamendi, Kolarov, Y Toure, Fernando, Navas, De Bruyne, Sterling, Aguero. Dier has been in exceptional form this season (4.2 tackles per match, 7th-best in the league) and is a crucial shield in front of the Jan Vertonghen/Toby Alderweireld partnership that has kept three successive clean sheets. Saturday’s hosts Leicester have had no such difficulty, needing fewer attempts to score each of their goals (6.2) than anyone except West Ham.
