1 Navas to maintain right-back berth?
Jesus Navas playing at right-back has been one of the more surprising decisions Pep Guardiola has made this season.
The Spaniard’s work-rate has never been in any doubt, but in his four years with City he’s only ever been and out-and-out winger.
With Southampton in the Premier League and Arsenal to come at Wembley, will Navas get the nod over Pablo Zabaleta and/or Bacary Sagna?
Navas hasn’t done much wrong in the past three games when he’s been up against Arsenal, Chelsea and Hull – but we’ll have to wait to find out.
2 Sterling work, Raheem
Raheem Sterling’s performance against Hull City was further evidence that the England winger is playing his best football yet for the Blues.
Confident and determined, he caused the Tigers problems all afternoon and set up Sergio Aguero’s goal with a scintillating slalom run that cut the visitors’ defence to ribbons.
With seven league games left and the FA Cup semi-final less than a fortnight away, Sterling can turn he afterburners on and end an excellent season on a real high.
3 Sergio’s twin goal
With his 28th strike of yet another a prolific season under his belt, Aguero has two important milestones within his sights.
With potentially nine games of the season still to play, Kun needs just two more goals to move into joint second place in the Blues’ all-time goalscorers’ list.
Tom Johnson is on 166 from 354 appearances while Sergio is on 164 from just 246 games played – an incredible statistic.
He is also just four short of equalling his best ever season haul of 32 goals set in 2014/15 – not a bad prospect for a striker in his sixth campaign in English football.
Only Zlatan Ibrahimovic (29 goals) has scored more goals than Aguero this season with the pair set to go head-to-head in the Manchester derby later this month. Should be interesting!
4 Centurions
City’s three goals against Hull mean that Pep’s men have now scored 101 goals in all competitions this season – a record only equalled by Arsenal.
Apart from Aguero, the goals have been reasonably well spread among the team with Leroy Sane, Sterling, Yaya Toure, David Silva, Kelechi Iheanacho and Kevin De Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan and Nolito all scoring at least five goals or more.
With so many woodwork strikes and spurned chances this campaign, it makes you wonder what the team is capable of if the finishing can be even more clinical next season.
5 Saints up next
Next Saturday the Blues travel to St Mary’s Stadium to take on a n improving Southampton side.
The Saints were good value for their 1-0 win at West Brom at the weekend and will want to finish a stop/start season on a high.
They have probably underachieved this campaign but can still secure a top eight finish with a decent run of results – the Blues will be hoping their sprint to the finish line starts after next weekend’s clash.
Our form away to Southampton is patchy, with just three wins on 12 visits since 1995 and this is always a tough fixture to call – but City need three points to maintain at least fourth spot in the Premier League with Arsenal and Manchester United waiting for any slip-ups.
