Manchester City vs. Sunderland
Venue: Etihad Stadium
Kick off: 4pm
Manchester City will look to bounce back from their defeat to Arsenal on Monday night when they welcome struggling Sunderland to the Etihad on Boxing Day (today).
The Black Cats will be heavy underdogs having lost their last three matches in a row.
Despite Leicester City sitting five points clear at kickoff on Monday night, the contest between Arsenal and Man City was billed as a clash between the two favourites for the Premier League title.
Leicester’s incredible surge to the summit has many believing that they could finish in the top four, but few are yet to truly consider the Foxes as worthy title contenders.
It was therefore a huge match at the Emirates two days ago, and Arsenal opened up a four-point lead on City with a 2-1 victory.
First-half strikes from Theo Walcott and Olivier Giroud put the hosts in control before a classy late goal from Yaya Toure gave City late hope.
They were unable to salvage a point and that makes it five Premier League games without an away win.
Before Toure’s pinpoint shot in the 81st minute, City had not scored on the road in the league in 316 minutes.
With Bayern Munich announcing that Pep Guardiola will be replaced by Carlo Ancelotti from the end of the season, Manuel Pellegrini’s position in charge of City looks even more fragile.
The latest reports are that City have spoken with Guardiola about taking over and that the Spaniard is interested in tackling the Premier League.
Away performances have been a big worry, but at home City have a fine record in 2015 having won 15 of their 19 Premier League games at the Etihad this calendar year, losing just three.
However, they have not prevented a visitor from scoring at M11 in seven home league games, their longest run without a home clean sheet in six years.
If Sunderland score today, it will be their longest run without a home clean sheet in league competition since October 1991, when they went 13 without a shutout.
On Boxing Day, City have only lost one of their last eight matches, but that was to Sunderland in 2012.
Back-to-back clean-sheet victories to end November had Sunderland out of the bottom three, but they have not earned a single point since then and watched others around them find some form.
Three straight defeats in December has left Sam Allardyce’s side five from safety and with games away at City and at home to Liverpool to finish the year, the situation could be bleaker come 2016.
On Saturday they travelled to Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea and Allardyce might have fancied causing an upset with all of the attention on the home side after the departure of Jose Mourinho.
However, the Blues looked reinvigorated and opened up a 3-0 lead before Sunderland came to life and got on the scoresheet through Fabio Borini.
In the end, it was too little, too late and the Black Cats became only the fifth team to lose to the champions in the top flight this season.
The Black Cats’ Boxing Day record does not make particularly good reading – they have won only two of their last 10 Premier League Boxing Day matches.
Former City winger, Adam Johnson, has found the net on his last two post-Christmas appearances, though, and one of those was in the victory over the Citizens three years ago.