PREDICTED LINEUP - MANCHESTER CITY VS CHELSEA - FODEN STARTS, GUNDOGAN AND DE BRUYNE ON THE BENCH

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Manchester City head into their match against Chelsea on Sunday afternoon knowing that so long as they equal or better Arsenal's result against Nottingham Forest on Saturday, they'll lift their third consecutive Premier League title in their final match at the Etihad Stadium this season.

The Blues are in outstanding form, having won all of their last 11 Premier League matches, with key players such as Erling Haaland, Kevin de Bruyne, Bernardo Silva and Ilkay Gundogan entering key form at such an important time of the season.

Chelsea, on the other hand, are having a season of differing fortunes. They lie all the way down in 11th place in the Premier League, behind teams such as Brentford, Brighton, Fulham, Aston Villa and even Manchester United.

Under the new ownership of Todd Boehly, Chelsea are on their third manager this season in club legend - and former City player for a season - Frank Lampard, who will be reportedly be replaced by Mauricio Pochettino at the end of the season, after only replacing Graham Potter in April on an interim basis.

City come into this title decider off the back of an outstanding 4-0 victory over Real Madrid in the UEFA Champions League semi final, thanks to two goals from Bernardo Silva, and further strikes from Manuel Akanji and Julian Alvarez. This means the Blues will face Inter Milan in the Champions League final, taking place in Istanbul on June 10th.

In my opinion, it was City's greatest ever performance under Pep Guardiola, and if they are able to emulate anything like that level of performance against Chelsea, then one would expect that they will smash the side from London comfortably.

City's past two matches to win the Premier League at the Etihad Stadium have had very different outcomes. The most recent one, the final game of last season, was a thrilling affair, in which a breath-taking late comeback from Pep Guardiola's against Steven Gerrard's Aston Villa led to the Blues lifting their second consecutive Premier League title, with club captain Ilkay Gundogan bagging a quick fire brace, either side of a Rodri strike from the edge of the box.

The second game was just over 5 years ago, as City blew a 2-0 halftime lead to lose to neighbours Manchester United 3-2 in heart breaking circumstances. City did win the league however the very next week, as United lost to 20th place West Bromwich Albion at Old Trafford, thanks to a goal by Jay Rodriguez.

Ideally, City won't be wanting to have much in common from either of those performances. In the United game, complacency crept in at half time, and 3 quickfire goals from Jose Mourinho's side really turned the game on it's head. Plus, City had one eye on an upcoming important UEFA Champions League quarter final against Liverpool, something that won't hindrance them this time.

The Aston Villa game was, in general, a relatively poor performance, as City looked nervous and flustered by the occasion, perhaps still scarred of shocking late comeback by Real Madrid in the Champions League just over 2 weeks before.

Ultimately, Pep Guardiola will just want City to play with the sort of confidence and swagger that has seen them put 6 goals past Manchester United, 4 goals past Real Madrid, Liverpool and Arsenal and 3 goals past Bayern Munich. Chelsea have been poor defensively this season - and even worse in attack - meaning it is likely that we'll see City try to overwhelm Lampard's side with players forming overloads and City piling numbers forward from the back, trusting their defensive players to do their job to prevent counter attacks.

If the stars don't align for Manchester City against Chelsea, then they have 2 more chances to win the Premier League, against Brighton and Hove Albion away and Brentford away, with the Blues only needing to win one of those 2 games to seal the Premier League.

Pep Guardiola is likely to go with a strong side for this game, and take the opportunity to rotate players after the fate of the Premier League is decided. I also don't believe that the result of Saturday night's game between Nottingham Forest and Arsenal will influence Guardiola's team selection in the slightest, as he'll have prepared his match plan long before then, and he will want his first team players to remain sharp before the two cup finals in June.

This means we should see a very similar starting 11 to the Real Madrid game, as Pep Guardiola seems to have found his strongest team, evidenced by the fact he has made just 1 change in City's last 5 UEFA Champions League matches. which was Kyle Walker in for the injured Nathan Ake.

However, some players, such as Kevin de Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan, looked exhausted towards the back end of Wednesday night's fixture, and had to be substituted before the end of the match. Therefore, we could see some sort of rotation, in the midfield area particularly.

Tactically, we don't expect Guardiola to stray far from the 3-2-4-1 formation in possession that has been so successful for him in the second half of this season. If Gundogan is rested, then we could well see a 3-3-1-3 formation that was used with success in the 3-0 victories over Sheffield United and West Ham.

Here is how we think Manchester City will line up in this potential title decider:

Ederson should start in between the sticks for City, as he has done in every Premier League game bar one this season.

The back 4 should be very similar to the one that played against Real Madrid. We're presuming that no news is bad news concerning the fitness of Nathan Ake, so the only real likely change that could be made is to bring in Aymeric Laporte. It's a possibility that the 28 year old could start, in what would likely be his final game at the Etihad Stadium, but Guardiola has never been one for real sentiment. This means we'll probably see Kyle Walker, John Stones, Ruben Dias and Manuel Akanji start as the back 4.

At the base of midfield, expect to see Rodri, although, as long as the title is wrapped up after this weekend, expect to see the Spaniard rested for Kalvin Phillips in at least one of the two remaining Premier League fixtures. Ahead of him, we think usual number 8's Kevin de Bruyne and Ilkay Gundogan will be granted a rest, meaning we'll see Bernardo Silva and Phil Foden to start. Bernardo will be providing the midfield "pausa" and control, whilst Foden will be taking risks on the ball and trying to unsettle the Chelsea defence.

On the right wing, Riyad Mahrez has started City's past 4 Premier League games, and we expect him to start again tomorrow. Jack Grealish will start out on the left wing, after tormenting Dani Carvajal on Wednesday night, and that Phil Foden is starting in midfield.

Up front, Erling Haaland, who has surprisingly only scored 1 goal in his last 4 games, will be looking to put things right against Chelsea tomorrow. For me, Haaland will be determined to score and, against a disorganised defence, this match has a hattrick for the Norwegian written all over it.

This means that City's substitutes bench will contain Stefan Ortega-Moreno, Rico Lewis, Aymeric Laporte, Sergio Gomez, Kalvin Phillips, Ilkay Gundogan, Cole Palmer, Kevin de Bruyne and Julian Alvarez.

CMON CITY!!!