Stiff test

 Manchester City battles Leeds United in their third match of the EPL season Saturday.

It’s another stiff challenge for Pep Guardiola’s men who will try to erase last weekend’s defeat against Leicester from their memory banks.

Newly promoted Leeds United have shown they can compete with the very best.

After narrowly losing 4-3 to Liverpool in their opening match, they beat Fulham and Sheffield United.

Marcelo Bielsa’s team currently sits in 7^th in the league standings.

Team News

 Star winger Jack Harrison, who’s in his second season on-loan from City is ineligible to play this weekend.

The Peacocks still have Gaetano Berardi (knee), Adam Forshaw (groin), Pablo Hernandez (groin) all on the injured list.

For the Blues still out are Gabriel Jesus (undisclosed), Sergio Aguero (knee), Joao Cancelo (foot), Ilkay Gundogan(COVID-19), and Oleksandr Zinchenko (undisclosed).

There was some good news however in mid-week as Aymeric Laporte and Bernardo Silva saw action at the Carabao Cup.

How they match up

City’s defense will need to show more poise than they did last weekend in conceding three penalty kicks to Leicester.

Patrick Bamford is the man to watch up front for Leeds, with three goals in three EPL matches.

Midfielder Mateusz Klich is another dangerous attacking midfielder who’s already got two goals this season.

Robin Koch is solid and tidy at the back with five blocks in the first three games.

He’s got a tall order in slowing down Kevin De Bruyne and the red-hot Raheem Sterling who’s got 13 goals in his last 17 matches.

De Bruyne was brilliant in limited action at the Carabao Cup this week.

The defense looked better with Laporte returning to action.

Should he be ready Ruben Dias will be tested against a potent Leeds attack.

These are two teams that can really score goals and we could be in for quite the match on Saturday.

Head to Head record

These teams have not faced each other since February 17, 2013, when City shutout the Peacocks 4-0 in their FA Cup tie.

The last time they faced each other in the Premier League was in 2004 when Leeds beat the Blues 1-0.

Overall these teams are pretty even with City winning 45 matches to Leeds’s 42.

Game info

Kickoff at Elland Road is 5 pm. (JSL)