Manchester City host West Ham at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday, 28 August as pep Guardiola's men look to close the gap on Manchester United and Chelsea who secured three crucial points on Saturday.

Where to watch live

Kick-off is set for 4pm BST. Live coverage of the game will be on Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 1 HD.

Overview

Manchester City have got themselves to a good start, winning their first four competitive games quite convincingly, marking a brilliant start to Guardiola's journey in the Premier League. After beating Sunderland and Stoke City in the league, they managed to make easy work of Steaua Bucuresti to make their way to the group stages of the Champions League, where they have not been given a kind draw, pitted against the likes of Barcelona and Borussia Monchengladbach.

This is a must win game for City, given that they will face arch rivals United at Old Trafford in their next game after the international break. A win against the Hammers will mean that on goal difference City go into the fixture above United, who edged past Hull City in the final minute owing to a goal by teenager Marcus Rashford.

Meanwhile, the Hammers have not had the best of starts to their campaign, losing to Chelsea and managing to edge past Bournemouth in the final minute last weekend. In the meantime, they have failed to qualify for the group stages of the Europa League, losing to Astra Giurgui over two legs where they were favourites to excel.

The Hammers have had a brilliant away record last season, only behind three clubs Leicester, Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal and will be confident of pulling an upset over their more decorated rivals. Dimitri Payet should be fit to return against City and manager Slaven Bilic will be hoping that he can get the ground running like he did last season, which would go a long way in replicating their performance last season.

Pep Guardiola
Pep Guardiola is content with his squad at Manchester City Chris Brunskill/Getty Images

What Managers Say

Pep Guardiola: "It would be a dream to work with 11 players and seven on the bench, no more, because then everyone is happy. At the moment, 19 players don't play so tell me how you handle that? It is impossible. I try to help my players every single day but of course the players might not understand that. They go to the media because they don't play. I spoke to Shaqiri about why he didn't play at Bayern but I cannot tell him every weekend."

Slaven Bilic: " [Pulling off an upset]It wasn't very likely last year because they had started great and had 15 points from five games without conceding a goal. But we played a really good game. We scored twice in the first half. In the second half they put us under pressure and were really dominating and creating a few chances, but they missed them and we were good in defending the box. Then we made that huge win."

Betting Odds (betfair)

  • Manchester City win: 1/4
  • Draw: 5/1
  • West Ham win: 10/1

Team News

Manchester City

Possible XI: Caballero; Zabaleta, Otamendi, Stones, Kolarov; De Bruyne, Fernandinho, Silva; Nolito, Aguero, Sterling

West Ham

Possible XI: Adrian; Byram, Collins, Reid, Masuaku; Noble, Kouyate; Antonio, Payet, Tore; Valencia

Manchester City FC West Ham United FC Premier League