Ake and Reijnders come in as City make two changes for Brentford clash

Nathan Ake and Tijjani Reijnders come in Abdukodir Khusanov and Nico Gonzalez for the 17:30 (UK) Etihad encounter.

Gonzalez drops to the bench whereas Khusanov and Rodri will not be totally match to face the Bees alongside long-term absentee Josko Gvardiol who has returned to coaching after a four-month spell on the sidelines.

Ruben Dias, in the meantime, is known as as a sub and is concerned in the squad for the primary time since March’s dwelling clash with Real Madrid.

Victory this night would transfer us inside two factors of leaders Arsenal with simply three video games remaining of the 2025/26 Premier League season.

TEAMS

CITY XI: Donnarumma, Nunes, Guéhi, Ake, O’Reilly, Bernardo (C), Reijnders, Semenyo, Cherki, Doku, Haaland

Subs: Trafford, Dias, Stones, Marmoush, Kovacic, Nico, Ait-Nouri, Savinho, Foden

BRENTFORD XI: Kelleher, Hickey, Collins (C), Ajer, Kayode, Jensen, Yarmoluk, Damsgaard, Lewis-Potter, Schade, Thiago

Subs: Valdirmarsson, van den Berg, Pinnock, Henderson, Dasilva, Nelson, Outtarra, Janelt, Furo

TACTICS

Gianluigi Donnarumma is between the sticks and protected by a again 4 of Matheus Nunes, Marc Guéhi, Nathan Ake and Nico O’Reilly.

Bernardo Silva will tackle the anchoring function and supported in the central floor by Tijjani Reijnders and Rayan Cherki.

Antoine Semenyo and Jeremy Doku will look to serve talisman Erling Haaland.

DANGER MAN DOKU

Jeremy Doku is a person bang in kind proper now as he appears to sting the Bees tonight.

The flying winger, true poetry in movement, is exhibiting an abundance of tempo and grace on the market on the soccer area and taking part in a starring function in the sky blue shirt.

In his final 5 outings, Doku has scored 4 targets and offered two assists.

In reality, for the reason that begin of April, solely Ollie Watkins and Morgan Gibbs-White have been concerned in extra targets amongst Premier League gamers than Doku.

Doku has additionally created 50 possibilities this season – and all from open play! It’s essentially the most possibilities created by any participant with none of them coming from set items like corners or free-kicks.

This present purple patch is coming on the good time as we enter the true enterprise finish of the season.

His supervisor, Pep Guardiola, has actually been impressed with what he is seen this time period.

“I’m so glad he made the step to score, and feels the winger has to score and make an impact not just the action one against one, not just the goals and assists but his contributions defensively,” the boss stated in his pre-match press convention.

“Jeremy has been amazing this season, amazing.”

Long might that proceed!

CHAMPIONING OUR CHARITY

City can be celebrating our charity this night as we host the annual ‘Community Matchday’ which brings collectively gamers, followers, workers and companions in help of City in the Community.

Activities intention to extend consciousness of the charity’s work, create once-in-a-lifetime alternatives for members and help fundraising.

Fans will be capable to entry bonus group content material, together with throughout the matchday programme, throughout half-time and throughout digital channels.

The fixture may also see the return of the favored ‘hand-drawn’ graphics on social media, as native faculty kids had been as soon as once more invited to attract their favourite City stars.

The stadium, which is being renamed ‘The City in the Community Etihad Stadium’ for the day, will come alive with charity branded banners earlier than kick-off.

And as soon as once more, the day is getting used to create once-in-a-lifetime alternatives for City in the Community members, together with workforce photograph areas, saying gamers off the bus on the blue carpet, presenting on the Matchday Live Show and becoming a member of the media groups.

City in the Community empowers more healthy lives with metropolis youth by soccer.

To discover out extra, go to www.mancity.com/CITC or observe the charity on social media @CITCmancity.

MATCH STATS

-Brentford have misplaced three of their 4 Premier League away video games towards City, with the exception being a 2-1 win in November 2022.

-Having misplaced our first Premier League dwelling match of the season 2-0 towards Tottenham Hotspur, City are unbeaten in our final 15 on the Etihad (W12 D3), scoring at the very least twice in 13 of these 15 video games.

-Only Liverpool (19) have scored extra targets in the ultimate quarter-hour of Premier League video games than Brentford (18) this season. However, City have conceded fewer targets in this timeframe than every other facet (7).

-City have conceded the primary aim in simply 5 totally different Premier League video games this season. The solely facet to take action fewer in a single marketing campaign are the Blues ourselves (3 in 2018/19).

-Brentford have the best shot conversion price of any facet in the Premier League this season, changing 13.8% of their makes an attempt. In reality, since their debut marketing campaign in 2021/22 the Bees have the second highest conversion price of any facet (13.1%), behind solely 3x title winners City (13.7%).

-City’s Phil Foden has solely scored extra Premier League targets towards Brighton (8) than he has towards Brentford (7), although solely considered one of his seven towards the Bees has come on the Etihad Stadium.

-Brentford’s Igor Thiago has scored 22 targets from 79 pictures in the Premier League this season, a conversion price of 27.9%. Of the 67 gamers to have scored 20+ in a season since 2003/04, solely 4 gamers have had a greater conversion price than the Brazilian.

-Though we have solely failed to attain in considered one of our 9 Premier League video games towards Brentford, our common of 1.4 targets per sport towards the Bees (13 in 9) is our lowest towards any opponent we have confronted below Pep Guardiola.