Newcastle were awful during Monday’s defeat to Aston Villa, and could not have asked for a harder opponent to try to bounce back against, as Manchester City visit St James’ Park.
Newcastle, of course, beat Pep Guardiola’s side on their last trip to Tyneside, with a come from behind 2-1 win, thanks to goals from Salomon Rondon and a penalty from Matt Ritchie.
Of course, neither goal-scorer will be playing this weekend, for different reasons, with Newcastle opting against signing Rondon, while Ritchie is still out through injury.
But Newcastle have shown they can mix it with the top sides this season, having already beaten both Tottenham and Manchester United, but whether they can do so on Saturday, largely depends which Newcastle United turns up.
Guardiola is playing catch-up in the title race, and will be out to ensure they do not slip up at Newcastle for a second year running.
Early team news
As mentioned, Matt Ritchie is still out, having suffered a setback in his recovery from his ankle injury, while Jamaal Lascelles is the other long-term absentee, sustaining a fractured tibia during the win against Bournemouth.
Sean Longstaff will be available again, after serving his three game suspension for his red card against Wolves, while Florian Lejeune is also on standby, still waiting to make his return following a long-term layoff.
Man City will be without Sergio Aguero, who suffered a thigh injury in the win against Chelsea, which will be a relief to Toon fans, having seen him score 15 goals from his 13 encounters against Newcastle.
Leroy Sane, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Aymeric Laporte are also ruled out.
Referee: Chris Kavanagh
The Lancashire official takes charge of Newcastle for the first time this season, having been in charge for nine Premier League games so far.
During those games, Kavanagh has awarded four penalties, shown 33 yellow cards, but no reds.
This will be the 13th time he has taken charge of a Newcastle game, and the seventh time in the Premier League. From those Premier League games, he has booked 11 Newcastle players, and the same number for the opposing side.
No red cards were shown in those games, and only one penalty has been awarded – for West Ham last season.
Points to prove
Newcastle will want to show Monday’s abysmal showing was an outlier after a good run of performances and results. So many players were off form at Villa Park, that they should all be champing at the bit to put things right against the reigning champions.
The forwards will also want to show they can get in among the goals, with them still having only one between them all season.
Miguel Almiron, particularly, should be trying to show he justifies a place in the starting XI, with him surely approaching the last chance saloon, with another poor performance possibly seeing him have a spell on the substitutes bench.
Manchester City will be a very dangerous animal on Saturday, as all those who played in last season’s defeat will be remembering what happened, and determined not to see it reoccur.
Guardiola’s defence also has something to prove this weekend, with them coming in for some criticism so far this season.
Likely formations
Steve Bruce abandoned his favoured five defenders formation in the second half of Monday’s defeat, largely because he was trying to find a way back into the game, having already found his side two goals down.
It is unlikely he will opt for four at the back against Man City, however, with him likely to be expecting his side to surrender the vast majority of possession in the game.
So it will almost certainly be another outing for the 5 4-1 he has relied on in all but one game so far.
Guardiola’s preference is to play a 4-3-3 formation, but has used a 4-2-3-1 in a couple of games.
But, he will be expecting to win against Newcastle, and despite not having Aguero available, it would be a surprise if he did not revert to his favoured method on Saturday.
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