Kick-off: 17:30 GMT, SundayTV: Sky Sports Main Event<\/p>\n
The schedule occasionally throws up wonderfully timed fixtures.<\/p>\n
Less than six months ago Enzo Maresca was basking in the glow of Chelsea’s<\/a> victory at the Club World Cup, which followed Conference League success and a top-five finish that secured Champions League qualification. Less than six weeks ago he led the club to a statement 3-0 win over Barcelona.<\/p>\n On New Year’s Day he left Stamford Bridge, in part due to his apparent keenness to succeed Pep Guardiola as Manchester City<\/a> boss; one win in seven Premier League<\/a> matches and publicly criticising those above didn’t help either.<\/p>\n Chelsea have never had a reputation for showing long-term support to head coaches, and since their Russian oligarch owner was usurped by a collection of equally egoistic billionaire hedgefund managers, it appears that trend has continued.<\/p>\n Anyway, good luck to Calum McFarlane.<\/p>\n While Chelsea seemingly iron out the details of taking Liam Rosenior from sister club Strasbourg<\/a>, their academy coach has been handed the unenviable task of facing the greatest coach of all time in his first senior game on the touchline. <\/p>\n Moreover, Guardiola has reshaped this City squad much more quickly than many anticipated would be possible, with a dogged – and very fortunate – defensive display from Sunderland (xG: SUN 0.88-2.24 MCI<\/a>) on New Year’s Day ending an eight-match winning streak. <\/p>\n MANCHESTER CITY have still won 15 of their last 19 matches and faced with an opponent in utter chaos we simply must find a way to back them.<\/p>\n It was (rightly) Regis Le Bris’ team who received all of the praise for earning a goalless draw at the Stadium of Light, but what appears to have gone unnoticed is City’s own improvement defensively. <\/p>\n Omari Hutchinson’s strike for Nottingham Forest last weekend<\/a> is the only goal they have conceded in their past six league fixtures, which makes the 5\/2 about WIN TO NIL very backable. <\/p>\n Score prediction: Man City 2-0 Chelsea<\/p>\n Odds correct at 13:20 GMT (2\/1\/26)<\/p>\n More from Sporting LifeSafer gambling<\/p>\n We are committed in our support of safer gambling. Recommended bets are advised to over-18s and we strongly encourage readers to wager only what they can afford to lose.<\/p>\n If you are concerned about your gambling, please call the National Gambling Helpline \/ GamCare<\/a> on 0808 8020 133.<\/p>\n Further support and information can be found at begambleaware.org<\/a> and gamblingtherapy.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kick-off: 17:30 GMT, SundayTV: Sky Sports Main Event The schedule occasionally throws up wonderfully timed fixtures. Less than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-227298","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}