Fulham v Manchester City: Preview and possible line-ups

TEAM NEWS

Fulham

Fulham are also suffering with significant absences, such as Alfie Mawson and Marcus Bettinelli through injury as well as Andre Schurrle through illness.

Tom Cairney is very much favoured by Scott Parker while Ryan Sessegnon should feature on the wing. If he does, it's likely that Ryan Babel will take his place on the other wing.

Manchester City

Nicolas Otamendi is not expected to return just yet after pulling out of Argentina squad. Vincent Kompany made a brief return to action but is now nursing a muscular problem and Stones continues to suffer with a groin issue.

Aymeric Laporte will therefore assume the centre-back role and with no other fit defenders, he may have to risk Stones.

Mendy, de Bruyne and Fernandinho returned to light training this week but it is less likely that Guardiola will risk any of those three. Sergio Aguero should get the nod up front.

MANAGERS' THOUGHTS

Scott Parker

Fulham manager on going head to head with Pep:

"I'm going to be standing alongside a man who will go down as one of the greatest. It's a challenge which I love, which I'm thriving on."

"It's a massive challenge for us as a club - the players, myself and the coaches - and with that we are looking forward to it."

On the injury front, the boys have come back from international duty pretty well,” Parker said. “There are slight concerns about a couple of the lads who have come back from long distances and will probably only come into the building tomorrow morning; Tim Ream and Mika, so we’ll need to look at them.

“Alfie Mawson’s progressing well, we need to try and get an Under-23s game under his belt. He’s been drip-fed into the squad pretty well, so injury wise we’re looking okay.”

Pep Guardiola

City manager on players returning from international break:

"Everybody came back fit. Fernandinho, Kevin [De Bruyne], Vincent [Kompany], everybody is okay.

"He [Benjamin Mendy] is 100 per cent. You have to manage his fitness at the moment. He trained the last three days and the reaction in his knee is really good".

"We have 21, 22 players and that's good to compete with each other."

Guardiola on Fulham's performance:

"They try to play well in first games. Mitrovic in the box is so dangerous. Good quality players, Babel is so fast just come back from Holland. I don’t see the table to see how they have done or results but they have done very well."

FORM GUIDE

DID YOU KNOW?

Fulham have not registered a win against Manchester City for 13 games across all competitions. City have scored 19 goals in the last six meetings with Fulham, having conceded just three since a 2-2 draw in 2011.

POSSIBLE LINE-UPS

Fulham

Rico; Fosu-Mensah, Chambers, Ream, Bryan; Anguissa, Serri; Babel, Cairney, Sessegnon; Mitrovic

Manchester City

Ederson; Walker, Stones, Laporte, Zinchenko; Bernardo, Gundogan, D.Silva; Sterling, Aguero, Sane