Manchester City v Tottenham: Premier League – live

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The teams are out. City wear their sky blue, while Spurs sport lily white. The visitors also wear black armbands in memory of their former player Anton Walkes, who passed away after a boating accident this week.

A quick reminder of how this fixture panned out last season. Forget astonishing. Forget sensational. It was truly psychedelic. More, please, City! More, please, Spurs!

Antonio Conte talks, gnomically, to Sky Sports. “Rodrigo [Bentancur] is an important player for us, with [Pierre-Emile] Hojbjerg. They do not play many games together, but they always give good performances. We must start to win, and then we will see what happens.”

Pre-match positivity: the Tottenham Hotspur way. “I laughed at this tweet back when it was first posted,” begins Yash Gupta …

“… and so far it’s been the only saving grace of this season. It is hilarious every time I read it. This season so far has been extremely disappointing, from starting with thinking Conte is nothing like Mourinho to realising Conte is a Poundland Mourinho. Anyway, if Spurs win Arsenal become favourites, and if Spurs lose Conte might leave. Looking forward to a 3-0 win for Tottenham with 15% possession. Bring it on!”

Alexandra Ashton adds: “I’m surprised both Lloris and Son start today. Lloris’ performance against Arsenal had Forster nailed to start (I had thought), and Son has been so poor for this entire season that Richarlison deserves a start. Kane isn’t dropping deep into that midfield role as he was wont to do last season, and Son is really suffering for it, being unable to latch onto through balls from deep. It would certainly be representative of our season so far if we beat City home and away, handing Arsenal the title. Bizarre inconsistency with flashes of good performances.”

That’s the spirit, folks. All aboard the emotional rollercoaster! Dissatisfaction guaranteed!

Pep Guardiola – who turned 52 yesterday and gets a belated ♫ happy birthday to you 🎶 – speaks to Sky Sports. “Even if we had won at Old Trafford this would be important. Last season we dropped six points against Spurs. Rico Lewis has played really well, he reads the positions, and that’s why he is selected. It’s a big responsibility, he’ll play against Son, Kulusevski, Kane, but it’s the perfect choice tonight. We have some patterns of play that we need to reignite again. The solution is not to do something that we have not done in seven years, because we have won four Premier Leagues in five years. If I think we should do something different, I would be stupid, because it works! So you have to try to do it again. Sometimes you forget. It is up to me to find the patterns!”

Manchester City make five changes to the side that started the 2-1 derby defeat by United. Julian Alvaraez makes only his second start in the Premier League for City. He’s in along with Rico Lewis, John Stones, Ilkay Gundogan and Jack Grealish. Some big stars drop to the bench: Kyle Walker, Joao Cancelo, Bernardo Silva, Kevin de Bruyne, Phil Foden.

Tottenham Hotspur are also coming off the back of a derby loss, having been comprehensively beaten 2-0 by Arsenal. Ivan Perisic, Rodrigo Bentancur, Ben Davies and Emerson Royal are back, as Clement Lenglet, Ryan Sessegnon, Pape Matar Sarr and Matt Doherty drop to the bench.

The teams

Manchester City: Ederson, Lewis, Stones, Akanji, Ake, Rodrigo, Gundogan, Grealish, Mahrez, Alvarez, Haaland.
Subs: Ortega Moreno, Walker, Dias, Phillips, Cancelo, Laporte, De Bruyne, Bernardo, Foden.

Tottenham Hotspur: Lloris, Emerson, Dier, Romero, Davies, Hojbjerg, Perisic, Bentancur, Son, Kane, Kulusevski.
Subs: Forster, Sanchez, Doherty, Sessegnon, Tanganga, Matar Sarr, Lenglet, Bissouma, Richarlison.

Preamble

Manchester City have lost their last two games. As a result, they’re out of the League Cup and eight points behind Premier League leaders Arsenal. Pep Guardiola has been kidding on that he doesn’t care any more, everything all gone, but come off it and come on. He’ll still be desperate to add City’s name to an elite list of three-in-a-row champions alongside Huddersfield Town, Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United.

Three points tonight and it’s back on, especially as Arsenal have to deal with in-form United at the weekend. On the face of it, you’d expect City to ease past troubled Tottenham, who are sputtering along in fifth spot, somehow hanging onto the fringes of the top-four race despite a series of unconvincing displays. But some teams just have your number, and Spurs have made a habit in recent years of upsetting City, not least last season when they did the double over them. This could be fun, then, one way or another. Kick off is at 8pm GMT. It’s on!