Manchester City make the trip to high-flying Southampton on Saturday afternoon on the back of successive draws that have further derailed their Premier League title hopes.
The Citizens are eight points adrift of leaders Liverpool with a game in hand, while Southampton are four points better off in third after a superb start to the campaign.
Match preview
© Reuters
City seemed happy to accept a point from their recent derby clash with Manchester United, but there was little to celebrate following Tuesday's 1-1 draw with West Bromwich Albion.
Ilkay Gundogan opened the scoring and it looked like being a routine win at that point, only for Ruben Dias's own goal - plus a string of Sam Johnstone saves - to deny City.
Guardiola accepted after the game that his side cannot afford to drop points against sides such as West Brom, who still went ahead and sacked boss Slaven Bilic after the match.
City have won back-to-back league games just once all season and are already playing catch up on Liverpool with two thirds of the season to go.
This trip to St Mary's is not exactly the easiest of matches on the face of it, either, with Southampton in great form at the moment.
© Reuters
Ralph Hasenhuttl's charges drew 1-1 away at Arsenal on Wednesday night, with Theo Walcott's goal cancelled out by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
That came on the back of successive wins over Brighton & Hove Albion and Sheffield United, the Saints having now lost only one of their last 11 league matches.
They won this corresponding fixture 1-0 last season, too, thanks to Che Adams's strike - his first for the club - when the sides last faced off in July.
That ended a six-match losing run against City and Southampton will feel, on recent form, that they may well be the favourites to win this game and keep their outside title hopes alive.
Southampton Premier League form: WDLWWD
Manchester City Premier League form: DLWWDD
Manchester City form (all competitions): WDWWDD
Team News
© Reuters
Hasenhuttl has no injury or suspension concerns for Saturday's match and may well stick with the same XI that started against Arsenal.
Nathan Redmond and Moussa Djenepo were brought on as second-half subs and are pushing for recalls, but Stuart Armstrong and Walcott should get the nod.
Danny Ings has gone back-to-back games without scoring, though he still has six goals and three assists in 10 league outings this term.
As for City, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Eric Garcia are their only two injury concerns.
Sergio Aguero is slowly regaining his fitness but, with City in need of goals, the Argentina international is expected to be handed only his third league start of 2020-21.
In-form defender John Stones was left out against West Brom but should return here, while Kyle Walker, Fernandinho and Riyad Mahrez are three others pushing for inclusion.
Southampton possible starting lineup:
McCarthy; Walker-Peters, Bednarek, Vestergaard, Bertrand; Walcott, Ward-Prowse, Romeu, Armstrong; Adams, Ings
Manchester City possible starting lineup:
Ederson; Walker, Stones, Dias, Cancelo; Fernandinho, Gundogan; Mahrez, De Bruyne, Sterling; Aguero
We say: Southampton 1-1 Manchester City
Southampton have won four of their last five league matches, keeping a clean sheet in each of those victories.
City have been far too inconsistent this campaign, as highlighted in their 1-1 draw with West Brom, and we can see this being another frustrating afternoon for Guardiola's men.
Top betting tip
Video prediction
Watch the Sports Mole Football Shorts prediction for this game below:
Daniel Lewis
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Manchester City win with a probability of 64.58%. A draw had a probability of 19.4% and a win for Southampton had a probability of 16.02%.
The most likely scoreline for a Manchester City win was 0-2 with a probability of 9.89%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-2 (9.87%) and 0-1 (9.01%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (8.99%), while for a Southampton win it was 2-1 (4.49%). The actual scoreline of 0-1 was predicted with a 9% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that Manchester City would win this match.
