Sutton’s predictions: Man City v Aston Villa

Sutton’s prediction: 2-0

At the start of the season I felt like I could predict Manchester City games with my eyes closed. Not any more.

Pep Guardiola’s side missed a massive chance to put the pressure on Arsenal when they lost at Tottenham last weekend. Their drop-off in form this season has not been in the same bracket as Liverpool’s, but I look at them and wonder when they are going to turn the corner, performance-wise.

There is this great debate about whether Erling Haaland has made them better or worse but I don’t see him as the problem. Too many of the City players around him have seen their levels dip, and the team have not been playing at their usual tempo or with their normal slickness of passing.

I still think they will beat Aston Villa, and I also believe Haaland will score, but it might be a slog. We know how hard Unai Emery’s sides can be to break down, and they will carry a threat too.

What should help City is that their fans will be in defiant mood after the club were hit with 100-plus charges by the Premier League at the start of the week.

There will be a siege mentality at Etihad Stadium and that should create the kind of atmosphere that Guardiola has been asking for recently. It will be the same in the dressing room too, if the players think everyone is against them, and that should fire them up.

Oli’s prediction: 2-1

Manchester City have been playing a bit weirdly for a while now and I think Haaland’s goals have masked a lot of issues in the team.

I am going for them to win, but it will be a close game – Harry from the band [FEET guitarist Harry Southerton] is a big Villa fan and when we used to live together we’d watch a lot of these kind of games, and in the last couple of seasons Villa always played well.

Find out how Sutton and Oli think the rest of the games will go and cast your vote here