JUST IN: ‘New’ kick-off time for Manchester City vs. West Ham United, TV channel, prediction, team news, lineups, scores, referee, and VAR.

Having ended 2024 as they mean to begin 2025,

Manchester City endeavour to continue their Premier League revival in

Saturday afternoon’s home encounter with West Ham United at the Etihad.

The reigning champions ended a topsy-turvy calendar year by seeing off Leicester City 2-0,

several hours before their visitors were obliterated 5-0 at home by rampant leaders Liverpool.

Match preview

Christmas cheer may have been in short supply on the blue half of Manchester,

but there was reason for Pep Guardiola to celebrate a momentous occasion at the

King Power Stadium, where his 500th game in charge of Man City ended in a long-overdue victory.

Savinho’s maiden Premier League goal and a second-half header from

Erling Haaland were enough to see off Ruud van Nistelrooy’s Foxes,

who were the victims of Man City’s first win in five matches across all competitions

and their first away success in over two months. The champions-in-crisis had

endured a chastening eight-game winless run on the road prior to their King Power triumph

losing seven of those encounters – but just a second victory in 14 matches in all tournaments has

lifted Guardiola’s men back into the top six of the Premier League table. However, the

Catalan coach has already extinguished hope of an epic title comeback while

Man City have work to do to even retain their Champions League status for 2025-26,

but a New Year seldom brings anything other than three points for Saturday’s hosts.

Indeed, the Citizens have prevailed in each of their last 12 opening league games of a

calendar year since being stunned by Southampton in 2012, and from Guardiola’s

eight Premier League home matches against West Ham, his side have triumphed in all eight of them.

Failing to march to victory in any of their last 18 Premier League matches against Man City, West Ham could start 2025 by writing an unwanted chapter of club history; they have never suffered a 19-game streak without a league win against a particular opponent. The Irons also went 18 games without victory against Liverpool back in the late 20th century, and the Merseyside giants coincidentally made extremely light work of Julen Lopetegui’s men on December 29, as five different scorers got in on the act.

Luis Diaz, Diogo Jota, Cody Gakpo, Mohamed Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold

all contributed to the hammering of the Hammers, whose four-game unbeaten run

came to an end in humiliating fashion, although they still have a healthy eight-point

buffer to the relegation zone. However, the visitors’ five-goal thumping at the hands of the

league leaders means that they conceded the most Premier League goals of any team in 2024 (79),

and speaking of breachable backlines, West Ham have not kept a clean sheet in any of their last 24

Premier League games versus Man City. The only time West Ham have gone 25 league

games without a shut-out against a particular opponent was against Sunderland in a

45-year spell from 1923 to 1968, before annihilating the Black Cats 8-0 to end the sequence;

for all of Man City’s issues this season, a repeat of that eight-goal extravaganza at the

Etihad is surely just a far-fetched fantasy. Manchester City Premier League form:

WDLLDW Manchester City form (all competitions):

DLLLDW West Ham United Premier League form: LWDDWL

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