Manchester City Match Preview

The 2-1 victory at Luton Town fifteen days ago made it West Ham United’s best start to a Premier League season for twenty four years. On that occasion, they went five games without defeat. However, they may struggle to maintain their current unbeaten form this weekend, as they face a visit from Manchester City- the team who won the treble last season.

The visitors arrive in East London with the division’s only 100% start and whilst many believe that they will pick up another three points here, the Hammers will be looking to cause another shock in front of their own fans, just as they did against Chelsea back on August 20.

Over the last fortnight, David Moyes finally put his new backroom team in place. Mark Robson, Henry Newman and John Heitinga will now join him on the touchline.

Although the Citizens played Fulham a day after the Irons triumphed at Kenilworth Road, another factor in favour of the home side ahead of this encounter is that City start their defence of the UEFA Champions League title against Red Star Belgrade on Tuesday and some of their attention will surely be focused on that match.

Josep Guardiola will be back in the away dugout for the encounter after missing the games against the Cottagers, as well as newly-promoted Sheffield United, following emergency back surgery and he will want to see his team continue from where they had left off at the start of the month.

Konstantinos Mavropanos and Mohammed Kudus could make their full debuts for the club, while Tomáš Souček was replaced in the starting line-up by Saïd Benrahma against the Hatters, due to concussion but may be restored here after being involved in the Czech Republic’s squads over the international break.

Moyes confirmed in his pre-match news conference ahead of this game that defender Kurt Zouma has been installed as the club’s new permanent Captain.

The match is a 3pm kick-off and the referee is Andrew Madley.