Manchester City has been playing very well in the UEFA Barclays Premier League this season and the club sits in third place on the Barclays table as they take on Southampton in Saturday action in the EPL and the match will be streaming online from NBC and is one of a number of solid matchups over the weekend with Tottenham and Chelsea also in action.
Arsenal is in first place on the league table over Chelsea and Manchester City and they are in over Liverpool and Everton and a win on Saturday could come after the team pulled off a tight victory against West Bromwich on Wednesday, winning 3-2 after late goals from the opposing club. Manchester City started off with a 3-0 lead into the final stretch of the match after goals from Sergio Aguero and Yaya Touré, who scored two, but the club allowed two late scores and ended up holding on for the 3-2 victory and now they will play Southampton.
Aston Villa won 3-2 over Southampton on Wednesday and they will try and stop a string of defeats with a good performance against Manchester City and it comes after the team was able to tie the match against Aston Villa 2-2 before allowing the winning goal in the 80th minute for Fabian Delph and now they will look to get back into the win column with a positive result. Manchester City can try and close the gap pn Arsenal on the league table, while Southampton currently sits in eighth on the table behind Newcastle United and Tottenham and tied in points with Manchester United, who will also be in action on Saturday.
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The team has lost three straight and now Southampton must patch up a suddenly leaky defense when they host free-scoring Manchester City on Saturday.
The once-meanest back line in the English Premier League has now conceded eight goals in the last three matches.
Two of those defeats came at the hands of league leaders Arsenal and second-placed Chelsea, and if Saints are to arrest their drop to eighth place in the league they will need to slam on the handbrake against third-placed City.
A priority for Saints' Argentine manager Mauricio Pochettino will be to organize his defense to protect third-choice keeper and compatriot Paulo Gazzaniga from the English league's most prolific attack.
With Polish stopper Artur Boruc out with a broken hand and back-up Kelvin Davis still injured, Saints suddenly look vulnerable and Pochettino's task will not be made any easier by the absences of Kenyan midfielder Victor Wanyama and key defender Nathaniel Clyne, both injured in the midweek loss to Aston Villa.
"Of course injuries always change your plans, your outlook, but we need to keep on believing," Pochettino told Southampton's TV service Saints layer on Friday.
"We need to keep on working, keep on believing like we have been doing."
Despite the run of defeats, 2-0 at Arsenal, 3-1 at Chelsea and 3-2 at home to Villa, Pochettino says his highly regarded Saints team have not become a poor side in a matter of days. "The performances of the team have been good. The results not so good, but we have played well, we stuck to our guns, but just the results did not go our way," he said.
In contrast to Southampton's three successive defeats - their worst run under Pochettino - City are on a roll with three consecutive victories, their best run under Manuel Pellegrini.
Argentine Sergio Aguero has scored 16 goals in his last 14 appearances for City in all competitions, including 10 in his last nine league games.
One chink of hope for Saints, though, is City's dubious away form. The division's top scorers (40 in 14 matches) have won just two games on their travels in the Premier League.
Neither will they have to contend with playmaker David Silva, whom City confirmed would not be fit for the match.
Pochettino, however, takes little comfort from the statistics.
"It is clear we will be facing a great side with incredible players. We are not just discovering this now - we know this already," he said.
"When we don't have possession we need to pressure their inside game. We need to be able to press and neutralize them to cut their supply to dangerous players. City boss Manuel Pellegrini believes Southampton will be a handful and that his team must repeat their midweek performance when they took all three points from West Brom.
(Reuters)
