Liverpool v Manchester City: Prediction, lineups and tips

Manchester City have made the perfect start to the season and arrive at Anfield looking to stretch it to six wins from six in the league. Liverpool, by contrast, have not lost but cannot stop drawing. Three stalemates in their last five league games have left them stuck in City's slipstream before a ball is even kicked at Anfield on Sunday. A raft of attacking absences has not helped the home side's cause heading into the biggest fixture of the season so far.

Liverpool have not lost a league game this season, but two wins and three draws from five outings is a modest return for a side with genuine title ambitions. They drew 0-0 at home to Fulham, were held 2-2 by Nottingham Forest at Anfield and shared four goals with Newcastle on the road. Only the away wins at Bournemouth and Ipswich have carried any real conviction.

The underlying numbers point to a side short of its best in front of goal. Liverpool are averaging 1.4 goals a game this season and have failed to score once already, despite racking up 15.2 shots per match on average. Three clean sheets from five tell a happier story at the other end, with the defence conceding just 0.8 goals a game, but a side that creates chances without finishing them off will always be vulnerable to a team that takes its own.

Manchester City have none of those problems. Six wins from six league games have them eight points clear at the Premier League's summit, scoring 16 and conceding only five along the way. Erling Haaland has been central to that, with five goals in five appearances and ten shots on target already. Enzo Maresca's side head to Anfield full of confidence and with nothing to lose; a win here would be their sixth in a row in all competitions and a statement of intent against the one side many expect to be their closest title rival.

The gap in current form is stark. Manchester City's last five league results read WWWWW, a run that includes a 5-3 win over Sunderland and a derby win at Manchester United. Liverpool's reads two wins and three draws, with no defeats but no real momentum either. City have scored in every one of their last five games and failed to keep a clean sheet only three times; Liverpool have gone without scoring once and been pegged back from winning positions twice. The form table says this should not be close, though Anfield has a habit of being levelled on its own terms rather than the formbook's.

Manchester City sit top of the Premier League with 18 points from six games, a perfect record and a goal difference of +11, the best in the division by some distance. Liverpool, with two wins and three draws from their five matches so far, have accumulated nine points, leaving them already eight adrift of City before this fixture is played.

A Liverpool win would close that gap to five points and turn this into a genuine title race again. A City win would stretch it to eleven points inside the opening two months of the season, the kind of cushion that can decide a campaign long before the business end. For Liverpool, who have drawn too many winnable games already, there is no margin left for another stalemate.

City hold the overall edge in this fixture, winning five of the last ten meetings to Liverpool's three, with two draws. The average of 2.9 goals per game is high, both teams have scored in half of those meetings and over 2.5 goals has landed in exactly half of them too. The pair's last meeting came in April, a 4-0 win for City in an FA Cup quarter-final at the Etihad, their heaviest win of the recent sequence.

That scoreline flatters the overall pattern a little, three of Liverpool's last four visits to face City have been competitive rather than one-sided, but the direction of travel favours the visitors. With City scoring at 2.6 goals a game this season against Liverpool's leakier recent finishing, the goals markets look the more reliable read than backing a repeat of the 50% BTTS split. Over 2.5 goals at odds around 8/13 looks the shrewder angle than a correct score bet on anything too tight.

The widest gap between these two sides is in front of goal. City are averaging 2.6 goals a game this season against Liverpool's 1.4, and their underlying numbers back it up, an expected goals average of 2.1 compares with Liverpool's 1.67. City also have the edge at corners, averaging 6.2 a game to Liverpool's four, a reflection of the territorial dominance (63.2% average possession against Liverpool's 59%) they have enjoyed in recent weeks.

Liverpool's counter is defensive solidity: three clean sheets in five games and just 0.8 goals conceded per match. If that holds up, this stays close. If City's volume of chances tells, as it has against every other side so far, the visitors should have enough in front of goal to make it count.

Kick-off is at 16:30 BST on Sunday 11 October 2026 at Anfield. The fixture is shown live on Sky Sports, the current UK rights holder for Premier League matches in this slot, with coverage also available via the broadcaster's streaming service. Highlights follow on Match of the Day for anyone unable to watch live.

The value here sits with Manchester City's superior firepower rather than the price-crunched match odds alone. City are scoring 2.6 goals a game to Liverpool's 1.4 this season, and that gap underpins the goals markets as much as the result. The anytime scorer market and the over 2.5 goals line both look stronger plays than the short BTTS price.