Premier League :Southampton - Manchester City
 

Today we will see a real examination of the Saints european credentials and I suspect they might be found wanting. They have sort of had two already and came up short, with their two defeats coming against the only "Big 7" teams they have faced this season and their eight wins against teams with an average league placing of 12.25 and even that is a little flattering, as two of them were in much poorer form than they are right now and in truth, the fixture list has been very kind to them. Of course, you can only beat what you are asked to, but there are still plenty of questions for the home side to answer and they face a big one today. Home boss Ronald Koeman has done his CV no harm since coming to the EPL and has done very good business in the transfer market and handled his small squad well, but the lack of rotation is a huge concern for me, seven of his squad have played in all 12 games, three in 11 and one in ten, they have also made the fewest substitutions in the top flight, to put that into some context, only one City player has appeared in all of their league games and two of those appearances only totalled sub 30 minutes. Of course, they have been fighting a Champions League campaign too, but all the "big" clubs rotate and have their eye on keeping players as fresh as possible across 38 matches and with the bigger picture in mind and I feel that refusal, or inability to do so, is going to cost Saints and soon.
 

Despite two goals coming late and against an opponent who had played much of the game with ten men, City will have been hugely buoyed by that win over Bayern Munich in midweek and further encouraged by Chelsea dropping two points at Sunderland last night and they can move into second and close to within six points of the leaders with the win today, which is a big incentive considering they were feeling a little sorry for themselves going into last weekend and once again, we have found that a week can be a long time in football and fortunes can quickly rise and fall. Serio Aguero is a world class striker near the peak of his powers right now and will be looking to celebrate his 100th PL game with his 65th goal and the visitors tend to score on the road, they have notched at least one in their last 12 away starts, two or more in ten, including all four games against "Big 7" teams in that sequence, given those stats, the 2.10-2.15 for them to score over 1.5 goals , has to be too big, regardless of the hosts solid defensive record, they have just not been asked so many questions as they will be today. Like the Burnley game yesterday, I feel the oddsmakers have gone a little overboard now on what the Saints have actually achieved, or rather the level of opposition they have faced.

Yaya Toure (pictured) and Fernandinho return for City having been suspended in midweek , Toure looked at his best , perhaps for the first time this season last weekend and will be hungry after missing out against Bayern, he scored the opener the last time these two met, at the Etihad back in April.