{"id":672668,"date":"2026-01-04T05:35:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T05:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/672668\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T05:35:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T05:35:14","slug":"manchester-city-vs-chelsea-premier-league-preview-team-news-how-to-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/672668\/","title":{"rendered":"Manchester City vs. Chelsea, Premier League: Preview, team news, how to watch"},"content":{"rendered":"

New month, new year, new head coach \u2026 new Chelsea? Enzo Maresca\u2019s out, Liam Rosenior\u2019s (soon) in. For now, U21s boss Calum McFarlane and his staff are in temporary charge, but that\u2019s just for this weekend. It looks like Rosenior will be making the move from RC Strasbourg soon after.<\/p>\n

But changing managers is always easy. Changing the team\u2019s fortunes will be a lot harder. Chelsea have just two wins in all competitions since November, and just one win in our last seven Premier League games. We\u2019ve dropped out of the top-four and are barely hanging on to top-five status. With half the season still to go, recovering some semblance of form will be crucial.<\/p>\n

That may not begin at City (probably won\u2019t begin at City), and this is a bit of a free hit given the circumstances. So perhaps we\u2019ll pull off a shock result, in classic Chelsea fashion.<\/p>\n

Date \/ Time: <\/strong>Sunday, January 4, 17.30 GMT; 12:30pm EDT; 11pm IST
Venue:<\/strong> Etihad Stadium, Manchester
Referee:<\/strong> Michael Oliver (on pitch); Darren England (VAR)
Forecast:<\/strong> Absolutely freezing all day, chance of snow at gametime<\/p>\n

On TV:<\/strong> Sky Sports Main Event (UK); NBCSN \u2026 is back! (USA); Star Sports Select HD1 (India); SuperSport Premier League, Canal+ Sport 3 (NGA); elsewhere<\/a>
Streaming:<\/strong> Sky Go (UK); Peacock (USA); JioHotstar (India); DStv Now (NGA)<\/p>\n

\"MANCHESTER,<\/a><\/p>\n

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND – DECEMBER 20: Pep Guardiola, Manager of Manchester City, reacts to his team\u2019s second goal scored by Tijjani Reijnders (not pictured) during the Premier League match between Manchester City and West Ham United at Etihad Stadium on December 20, 2025 in Manchester, England. (Photo by Molly Darlington\/Getty Images) Getty Images<\/p>\n

Manchester City team news:<\/strong> City\u2019s surging momentum was checked by Sunderland on Wednesday, a goalless draw halting an eight-match winning run and opening the gap slightly to league-leaders Arsenal. The Gunners won yesterday against Bournemouth, so City will need all three of these points to not fall further behind. Antoine Semenyo started that game for the Cherries, so he\u2019s not yet a Manchester Blue.<\/p>\n

Not that Pep Guardiola\u2019s lacking for quality options, even with Omar Marmoush and Rayan A\u00eft-Nouri away at the Africa Cup of Nations and Oscar Bobb, Savinho, John Stones, and Mateo Kova\u010di\u0107 injured (Bobb may also be leaving this month). Midfielder Nico Gonz\u00e1lez is facing a late fitness test, as are J\u00e9r\u00e9my Doku and Rodri, who both made their returns from long injury layoffs on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

View from the enemy:<\/strong> Bitter and Blue<\/a><\/p>\n

\"COBHAM,<\/a><\/p>\n

COBHAM, ENGLAND – JANUARY 2: U21 Head Coach Calum McFarlane and Enzo Fernandez of Chelsea during a training session at Chelsea Training Ground on January 2, 2026 in Cobham, England. (Photo by Darren Walsh\/Chelsea FC via Getty Images) Chelsea FC via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Chelsea team news<\/strong>: Our injury situation is slightly better, with only Levi Colwill, D\u00e1rio Essugo, and Rom\u00e9o Lavia out, but our left back situation is not clear at all \u2014 Marc Cucurella and Jorrel Hato were both back in training but remain doubtful, at best \u2014 and Mois\u00e9s Caicedo is suspended once again, this time for yellow card accumulation.<\/p>\n

That said, the task for interim head coach Calum McFarlane is pretty simple: play our best players, in their best positions, and see if their individual skills can carry the day. It\u2019s going to be a busy month ahead for the Blues, across four different competitions, but he can let the new guy in charge worry about all that.<\/p>\n

Previously: <\/strong>Our recent record against City is absolutely horrendous, having lost three in a row, including 3-1 here last season, and still looking for our first win against them since the 2021 Champions League final. This will be our 12th meeting since then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New month, new year, new head coach \u2026 new Chelsea? Enzo Maresca\u2019s out, Liam Rosenior\u2019s (soon) in. For…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672669,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8813],"tags":[748,148622,393,4884,2465,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-672668","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manchester","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-chelsea-fc-premier-league","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-manchester","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115835213239955578","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}