Match preview : Manchester City v Sunderland

Pep Guardiola gets his tenure as Manchester City boss underway by hosting Sunderland at the Etihad Stadium in their Premier League opener on Saturday evening.

The former Barcelona and Bayern Munich boss will likely hand a debut to John Stones in central defence, after he joined from Everton for £47.5million earlier this week.

Guardiola will face off with David Moyes in the late kick-off, who returns to management for the first time since being sacked by Real Sociedad last season.

Moyes replaced Sam Allardyce at the Black Cats, after he left to take the England job last month having kept Sunderland up in impressive fashion last season.

Nicolas Otamendi requires a fitness test after a tendon problem while captain Vincent Kompany (thigh) is sidelined and Eliaquim Mangala has lacked match fitness after his late return to training following Euro 2016.

Two other summer signings in Ilkay Gundogan (knee) and Leroy Sane (hamstring) are injured but striker Nolito and midfielder Oleksandr Zinchenko could make debuts.

New signings Adnan Januzaj, Paddy McNair and Donald Love will go straight into the Sunderland squad for Saturday’s opener at City.

Midfielder Januzaj, who completed a season-long loan move on Friday, will be joined in the travelling party by permanent signings McNair and Love, who are both defenders, although Moyes has a decision to make over wantaway centre-half Lamine Kone.

However, the Scot will definitely be without Seb Larsson, who is facing up to six months on the sidelines following knee ligament surgery, while fellow midfielders Lee Cattermole (groin) and Jan Kirchhoff (hamstring) and full-back Billy Jones (hip) are also out.

City are unbeaten in their last seven Premier League opening weekend fixtures (W6 D1), including winning each of the last five.

Guardiola has won the opening league game of the season as a manager in each of his last six seasons (three for Barcelona, three for Bayern) – he lost his first league game as Barcelona boss (0-1 at Numancia), however.

Sergio Aguero is the top scoring player in the Premier League so far in 2016 (17 goals in 18 games).

Jermain Defoe has scored in 15 different Premier League seasons and will be looking to become only the eighth different player to net in 16+ seasons in 2016/17.

Moyes is 5th in the all-time Premier League standings for most games managed (P461 W190 D129 L142).

The newly appointed Sunderland boss has won five times at the Etihad Stadium in the Premier League – the only visiting manager with more wins is Arsene Wenger (6).

NaijaBet Odds

As at this post Manchester City has 1.22 odd to win the match on NaijaBet while sunderland  has 11.50 odd to win the match also, while the odd to draw the match is 6.12

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