Man City vs. Norwich City
Venue: Etihad Stadium
Kick off: 4PM
Two sides separated by a whopping 57 points in the Premier League table will lock horns as Manchester City welcome Norwich City to the Etihad Stadium.
Both sides go into the game with nothing but pride to play for, with Man City’s second-placed finish and Norwich’s relegation already confirmed ahead of today’s clash.
An unprecedented three straight titles for Manchester City was ultimately not to be for Pep Guardiola, although the Citizens have bigger fish to fry heading into the summer months.
For all their domestic success of the past few seasons, City are yet to triumph in the Champions League and will undoubtedly view this game as little more than a warm-up for the second leg of their last-16 clash with Real Madrid in August.
Guardiola will not want his players to rest on their laurels, however, as a shock defeat to the Premier League’s basement side on Sunday could rock City’s confidence before they welcome the recently-crowned La Liga champions to Manchester.
The Citizens must now aim to win their fifth game on the bounce in the English top flight, having comfortably swept aside Watford, Bournemouth, Brighton & Hove Albion and Newcastle United in the past few weeks.
From an individual perspective, Kevin De Bruyne is still looking to dethrone Thierry Henry as the Premier League’s assist king, and the City man needs to set up two goals on the final day to surpass Henry’s record tally of 20 assists for Arsenal in the 2002-03 campaign.
As for Norwich, Daniel Farke’s misery was compounded to the extreme in the early stages against Burnley, as Emiliano Buendia and Josip Drmic both received their marching orders before the half-time whistle.
Burnley did not need another invitation to take the game by the scruff of the neck as Sean Dyche’s men marched to a 2-0 victory in Norwich’s final home game of the season – a result which stretched the Canaries’ winless run across all competitions to 10 matches.
Despite boasting some promising individual talent in the ranks at Carrow Road – namely the likes of Todd Cantwell and Max Aarons – Norwich were never expected to produce a miraculous comeback following the restart and must now prepare for an immediate return to the Championship.
Farke and his players must now face the daunting task of trying to scrape a result at the Etihad on the final day, although the Canaries will not have forgotten their historic 3-2 win over Man City in the reverse fixture.
Man City possible XI: Ederson, Cancelo, Laporte, Garcia, Mendy, Gundogan, De Bruyne, D. Silva, Mahrez, Jesus, Sterling.
Norwich possible XI: Krul, Aarons, Godfrey, Zimmermann, Lewis, Vrancic, McLean, Cantwell, Stiepermann, Hernandez, Pukki.