BTTS landed in both league meetings between these sides last season. Brighton managed to avoid defeat across those two games and came away 2-1 winners in this fixture last campaign.

Manchester City’s backline is still looking a bit vulnerable in the early stages of the season, with Tottenham expertly exposing Pep Guardiola’s side’s weaknesses in their 2-0 win over City last time out. 

Brighton have generated an xG of 3.91 across their opening two games of the season, but have only found the back of the net once. They have conceded in both games against Everton and Fulham, and boast a promising goal record at the Amex Stadium.

The Seagulls saw 56 goals across their 19 home games last season (2.94 per game), scoring 30 of these goals. They don’t tend to draw a blank in front of their home fans. Fabian Hurzeler’s side only failed to score in four of their 19 home games last season, which means we can expect Manchester City to have to score at least twice here if they want to take all three points.

Marmoush was City’s brightest attacking player in their 2-0 defeat against Tottenham. He was playing off the left, which I think is a position that actually increases his chances of finding the back of the net with his strong ability to cut inside and fire shots away.

Marmoush did this constantly against Spurs; he had three shots in the game, with two of these attempts finding the target. 

Marmoush has quite the impact since arriving from Frankfurt at the start of this year. He’s scored seven goals across his 18 Premier League appearances for City, which is a respectable total for a new signing adapting to the intensity of the Premier League.

Marmoush averaged 3.73 shots per 90 and 1.29 shots on target per 90 across his 16 Premier League appearances last season. His shot volume being that high is always a good sign when backing a player for a shot on target, as they’ll likely have a few attempts on goal in the game. 

Marmoush also averaged 4.77 shots per 90 and 2.23 shots on target per 90 across his 17 appearances for Frankfurt in the Bundesliga last season, with this record resulting in 15 goals.

Yankuba Minteh was Brighton’s best player against Everton, and I think he’ll be a real threat against sides like City, who like to push their fullbacks high or inside at times, leaving plenty of space for the Gambian winger to exploit.

Minteh is direct and frighteningly quick; his teammates let him down a bit in the game at the Hill Dickinson stadium when looking over some of his stats from the game:

• 4 chances created (most in a match) 

• 5 successful dribbles (most in the match)

• 13 touches in the opposition box

• 6 passes into the final third

These underlying positive attacking metrics didn’t quite crossover to his shot count with Minteh having just one effort in the game, but that should increase here with the threat that Brighton can offer through their wide players.

Rayan Ait-Nouri has suffered an unfortunate injury, which means that Minteh is likely to be running at an unconventional left back, which will heighten his effectiveness in those 1v1 duels.

Minteh averaged 1.66 shots per 90 in the Premier League last season, but I think his game has developed, and he can be an even more important and effective player for Brighton this year. Minteh didn’t feature in the clash between the sides at the Amex Stadium, but had two shots when the sides drew 2-2 at the Etihad last season.

Both Brighton centre backs were in a real battle with Erling Haaland last season,  van Hecke and Igor who acted as the centre back pairing in that game were shown yellow cards.

Van Hecke is the type of player who will have no issues in engaging in physical duels with Erling Haaland and I could see a real battle developing between the pair on Sunday afternoon. Van Hecke didn’t commit a foul against Everton last time out but did lose the most duels in the game (8) where he was also up against a physical opponent in Thierno Barry.

Van Hecke committed 25 fouls across his 33 Premier League appearances last season (0.76 per 90) which is a far more attractive record than his centre back partner in Lewis Dunk (0.40 per 90). This indicates that van Hecke is the more likely Brighton centre back to engage with Erling Haaland and also jump to meet the midfield players.

Haaland really likes playing against Brighton. He scored in both games against the Seagulls last season and has been a thorn in the side of Fabian Hurzeler’s side before netting five goals across his five games against Brighton in the Premier League.

Haaland started the season really strongly against Wolves with a brace to get his campaign underway. He was quite isolated against Spurs, which was more down to the impressive structure of Thomas Frank’s side rather than Haaland’s performance being subpar. 

Haaland should get chances here against a Brighton side that conceded 26 goals at home in the Premier League last season. Haaland netted 31 goals across all competitions for Manchester City last season, with 22 of these goals coming in the Premier League.

I backed this as a single last week, and I’ll continue to back it as long as the price remains this generous. This pricing is probably from his time at AC Milan, where he averaged just 0.63 fouls won per 90, but that is set to rise this season, judging from his role in the opening few games of the season.

Reijnders was fouled twice against Wolves, contesting 14 duels in the game. He’s not been brought in to dictate the game; City have plenty of players who can do that. He’s been added to the side to increase their goal threat from central areas, and also to ensure that sides don’t break on Manchester City as easily as they did last season through tactical fouls.

Reijnders was also fouled once against Tottenham, with these early signs suggesting to me that Reijnders is going to win a lot more fouls this season. The Premier League has a higher intensity and speed when compared to Serie A, so it’s not really a surprise that Reijnders is finding himself in these situations.

He’ll be up against Carlos Baleba, who can be quite reckless and has already committed three fouls across his opening two games of the season. Baleba averaged 1.35 fouls committed per 90 across his 34 Premier League appearances last season.

Rayan Ait-Nouri is out for this game, having picked up an injury in the first half against Tottenham last time out and Pep may turn to O’Reilly to plug the gap at left back, as he did many times last season.

O’Reilly usually plays as a central midfielder, but a bit like Myles Lewis-Skelly, has been predominantly played at left back under Pep Guardiola. He has all the qualities to be a good full-back, but we should eventually see him move back into midfield.

He’ll be up against Yankuba Minteh, who was Brighton’s brightest player against Everton and completed all five of his dribbles. His direct opponent in James Garner, was shown a yellow card in the game. O’Reilly didn’t pick up a booking in the Premier League last season, but did receive two cautions across his 6 appearances in the FA Cup last season.