Newly crowned English Premier League champions Manchester City are set to receive a heroes’ welcome at the Etihad Stadium when they host newly promoted
Ipswich Town in their first home league match of the new season on Saturday
afternoon.
The two teams have faced each other only once in the past and that was back in
January 2002 when the two sides were poles apart in terms of their status; while the Citizens were a second-tier club, the Tractor Boys were playing in the top flight and they were humbled 4-1 by their fellow promotion chasers at Portman Road in an FA Cup third round match.
Following the triumph of Manchester
United in the Community Sield match, where City exacted revery for their FA Cup final defeat of 11 weeks ago – which went to the Red Devils – Man City started the title defence with an assured 2-0 win over
Chelsea last Sunday.
Last season’s Premier League Golden Boot winner Erling Haaland scored on his 100th appearance for the club in only his first start of the 2024-25 season, while ex-Chelsea star Mateo Kovacic added a goal six minutes from time to take maximum points from the Bridge.
Manchester City have managed to secure 10 consecutive Premier League victories by a margin of at least two goals for the first time in the Premier League’s history and they achieved nine of those in their final nine games from the previous season; their manager Pep Guardiola said after the game against Chelsea that he ‘did not expect’ his Manchester City side to play so well, given their rather unsettled pre season and the fact that they had to do without some
Man City will be confident in their prospects of winning when they play Ipswich on Saturday. Since losing 2-1 at home to Leeds United in April 2021, they have won 17 of their previous 18 Premier League games against promoted opponents.
Last weekend’s 2-0 loss to Liverpool at
Portman Road marked the start of
Ipswich’s first Premier League season in 22 years, following back-to-back promotions under beloved head coach Kieran McKenna.
Superfan Ed Sheeran, who recently bought a 1.4% ownership stake in his childhood team, was in attendance as the Tractor Boys put on a strong first half performance.
However, the hosts were ultimately defeated by two goals in as many minutes in the second half from Reds players Diogo Jota and Mohamed Salah.
After the game, McKenna was all smiles, saying he saw “a lot of positives” from his team’s efforts. However, he has urged his players to keep up their current level of play if they want to “challenge” in the premier league this year.
Ipswich’s return to the big time does not get any easier as they gear up for a tough journey to Manchester City, which will be their first-ever visit to the Etihad. Prior to this, they had not won or scored in any of their previous seven away games against the current premier league winners.
But the Tractor Boys prevailed in their last two away games against Man City at their old home ground at Maine Road, winning the EFL Cup 2-1 a month after defeating the Premier League 3-2 in November 2000.
Guardiola has stated that Oscar Bobb would likely lose several months of time due to surgery he had last week for a fractured leg, and that Man City will likely be without their outstanding midfield player Rodri, who missed the victory against Chelsea and trained separately this week.