Manchester City have already topped their Champions League group but have one more match to play against Sevilla. The Spanish side are also confirmed to finish third place so this game is all about pride.
City are currently unbeaten so will want to retain that form while Sevilla manager Jorge Sampaoli will want to show that he is getting the side back on track after he replaced Julien Lopetegui in the manager's role last month.
City won the reverse fixture in Spain 4-0 thanks to a brace from Erling Haaland and goals from Phil Foden and Ruben Dias. However, the Norwegian striker will not be available for the game at the Etihad as he continues to recover from injury.
ALSO READ: Every word from Pep Guardiola on Man City vs Sevilla team news and Erling Haaland latest
Pep Guardiola told the media: "[Haaland] feels better. Comparing to Saturday, Sunday, Monday, every day feels better. Still not 100%, we don't want to take a risk. Hopefully we have him against Fulham."
The supercomputers at FiveThirtyEight have of course predicted that City will win with a probability of 81%. They also predicted that there was a 15% chance of a draw and a 5% chance of a loss (probabilities are rounded up on the website).
Sevilla have also only won two games since Sampaoli was appointed manager against FC Copenhagen and Mallorca. So it seems unlikely that they will be able to turn their fortunes around against one of the best teams in Europe.
City did struggle against Leicester without Haaland but fans would still expect that Guardiola's side have enough firepower to win the game.
However this most likely doesn't take into account the possibility that Guardiola will take the opportunity to rest some players ahead of the final run of fixtures ahead of the World Cup. Sevilla could also do the same but it is more likely that given that Sampaoli is trying to implement a new style he could play a strong lineup to breed familiarity.
So City fans may be in for a rough night or maybe even another great night at the Etihad, but given that they are already through in the first to the next round of the Champions League they don't need to be concerned about what the result means for the bigger picture.
READ MORE:
