A DRESS rehearsal for the Premier League title race takes place on Friday night when Manchester City hosts Arsenal in the FA Cup.
With the two clubs at the top of the league, City are in pursuit of the Gunners who sit five points clear of them with a game in hand. However, they have yet to face each other in the Premier League.
The first of those titanic battles takes place in a couple of weeks in London and they are due to meet at the Etihad in April in what could be a title decider.
Of course, the question this week is whether both managers will feed their strongest line-ups and how important it is to out down a marker ahead of the run-in.
Both sides have almost a full week to recover after this and there's no midweek encounters so there's no real reason for any side to rotate or weaken their line-ups.
And they should both be on a high here with Arsenal clinching what could be a seismic 3-2 win over Manchester United at the weekend, while City mounted a comeback win over Spurs and followed that up with a comfortable romp at home to Wolves.
How the bookies view it
Manchester City are odds-on favourites across the board here with the 3/4 on offer from SBK the best on offer.
Arsenal can be backed at 18/5 with Coral and the draw is 10/3 with UniBet.
Recent head to heads
City have got a fantastic record against the Gunners – they have won five of the last meetings between the teams and Arsenal have won just one of the last 13 meetings.
Players to watch
Some had suggested Erling Haaland had perhaps gone off the boil, but the Norwegian resumed normal service with a hat-trick against Wolves to make it 25 goals in 18 league starts. He is odds-on at 7/9 with SBK to score anytime.
Eddie Nketiah was Arsenal's hero on Sunday with a double against Manchester United. He has scored seven goals in his last seven matches and is a big price of 4/1 to score on Friday night with William Hill.
Anything else catch the eye?
This has all the hallmarks to be an entertaining clash with goals and there's an argument that no club should be odds-on playing this Arsenal team this season. They are an exciting watch and have toughened up too.
The way Arsenal go at teams when they embark on their bursts of attacks should strike fear into anyone and they proved on Sunday, they boast resilience too. The double chance of Arsenal and the draw is surprisingly odds-against at 59/50 with Unibet.
It's around 4/6 for both teams to score, but that rises to 21/20 with 10bet for both teams to score and over 2.5 goals and that could be the way to go here with both sides having an array of attacking talent.
This FA Cup match between Manchester City and Arsenal will be played on Jan 27, 2023 and kick off at 20:00. Check below for our tipsters best Manchester City vs Arsenal prediction. You may also visit our dedicated betting previews section for the most up to date previews.
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