Liverpool v Man City: Betting acca tips, team news & predicted XIs

Liverpool and Manchester City get the 2022/23 season underway in an FA Community Shield showdown at the King Power Stadium on Saturday at 17:00.

The official curtain-raiser is an opportunity for last season’s championship rivals to lay down a marker. However, since the Premier League’s inception exactly three decades ago, only eight Community Shield winners have gone on to become English champions (City were the last in 2018/19).

City boss Pep Guardiola has won this event on two previous occasions while his Liverpool counterpart Jurgen Klopp is seeking to complete the set. “It’s a very important game. It’s the last domestic cup competition we haven’t won yet, so we’ll give it a try,” he said.

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How to live stream Liverpool vs Man City online:

The game is available to watch in the UK on ITV’s website, itv.com.

Bet UK acca inspiration for this weekend

New and existing Bet UK customers can increase their accumulator profits by up to 50% using the bookmaker’s Acca Club promotion. Find out how by following this link to our Bet UK Acca Club guide.

And if you’re looking for inspiration, here’s an illustrative acca we put together covering the Community Shield, the Championship and Women’s Euro 2022 final, French Trophée des Champions and German DFL-Supercup.

• Erling Haaland First Goalscorer in Liverpool v Man City: Haaland has scored on his debut in the Norwegian Football Cup, Champions League, Bundesliga, DFB-Pokal and DFL-Supercup.
  
• BTTS in Sunderland vs Coventry: Six of the Sky Blues’ last eight Championship away games have seen both teams score.
• England Women to beat Germany Women in 90 mins: England are 6/4 to beat Germany in 90 minutes with Bet UK.
• Lionel Messi to score in PSG v Nantes: Messi scored seven goals in his last five outings (all friendlies), including five in an international appearance against Estonia.
• Thomas Muller to assist in Leipzig v Bayern Munich: Muller has made the most assists in the last three consecutive Bundesliga campaigns.
• Total odds: 130/1

All odds and offers in this article are accurate at the time of publication. Prices/odds are subject to fluctuation. You must be 18+ to gamble. Please play responsibly. For more information, visit gambleaware.org

Liverpool team news & predicted XI

Adrián will make a rare domestic start for Liverpool after Reds head coach Jurgen Klopp ruled out first-choice goalkeeper Alisson, who sustained an abdominal injury in a pre-season friendly against Manchester United earlier this month. He’s joined on the sidelines by Diogo Jota, who hasn’t featured in the club’s preparations after suffering a recurrence of a hamstring injury. Jota’s absence increases the likelihood summer recruit Darwin Nunez will officially make his Liverpool debut in some capacity, especially as the FA permits six substitutions in this match.

• Adrian; Alexander-Arnold, Matip, Van Dijk, Robertson; Fabinho, Henderson, Thiago; Salah, Diaz, Firmino

Man City teams & predicted XI

As for the defending Premier League champions, they are still without influential centre-back Aymeric Laporte, who underwent knee surgery at the end of last season. Elsewhere, several new faces are seeking to make their City debuts. With his tendency for rotating Ederson when it comes to playing in the domestic cup competitions, Stefan Ortega could get the nod in goal. Although memories of Zach Steffen’s errors in last season’s FA Cup semi-final defeat to Liverpool may convince him to go full strength between the sticks.

Erling Haaland could start with Kalvin Phillips and Julián Álvarez likely to start on the bench.

• Ederson; Walker, Dias, Ake, Cancelo; Rodri, Bernardo, De Bruyne; Mahrez, Haaland, Grealish.

Klopp highlights Man City’s Erling Haaland problem

As mentioned, both Liverpool and Man City have shiny new strikers in Nunez and Haaland, and will be banking on them being key in their trophy aspirations this season. While both Nunez and Haaland are excellent strikers and understandable signings, they will bring with them a change in style for Liverpool and Man City, who haven’t been strangers to a False No.9 in recent season.

For Liverpool, Roberto Firmino become one of the best False No.9s in the world after growing under Klopp and even when he dropped out of the team last season it was Sadio Mane filling the role, not an orthodox centre-forward. Although Man City did have Sergio Aguero over the years, the Argentinian’s injuries towards the end of his spell meant that Guardiola often had to get creative. And while he did have Gabriel Jesus on the books, Guardiola often preferred to play someone like Bernardo Silva, Kevin De Bruyne or Phil Foden through the middle, something that continued last season after Aguero’s departure.

And Klopp believes Man City are yet to change their style of play to suit Haaland, who scored 85 goals in 88 games for Borussia Dortmund, despite the Norwegian scoring on his unofficial debut against Bayern Munich.

“We watched the Bayern game obviously and it was not too different but it was good and Erling scored a Manchester City goal,” he told reporters.

However, this wasn’t a dig at Man City, as Klopp also mention his own problems in adapting to Nunez’s play which was evident in early stages of pre-season before the Uruguayan got off the mark with four goals against RB Leipzig.

He added: “Like a square ball in the six yard box and that is so far it didn’t change a lot, they have same problem we have as they are not used to Erling’s natural runs just as we are not used to Darwin’s natural runs yet.

“When Darwin offers a run we give him the ball all the time, which is not helpful because often a guy who stretches the opponent is there to create space between the lines, these kind of things.

“I am pretty sure they will need time for Erling but that doesn’t mean he cannot score already early like how he did it in the first game against Bayern. Most of the things look like last year, how they set up the press, how flexible they are in their own possession, it is good, very very good but so far not real change is obvious.”