Aston Villa v Manchester City: Premier League – live

· Guardian-PL

⚽ Premier League updates from the 12.30pm BST kick-off ⚽ Ten things to look out for | Live scores | Table You remember Manchester City, don’t you? They made one or two headlines earlier in the month, but have since been kept off the back pages by a neighbouring circus. Since the weird (and wonderful, if you’re a City fan) win at Anfield, Enzo Maresca’s team have played three games, all at home. They were undressed by PSG, held off Ipswich last weekend and hammered AEK on Tuesday. Oh, and Elliot Anderson made the James Bond shortlist .

Preamble

You remember Manchester City, don’t you? They made one or two headlines earlier in the month, but have since been kept off the back pages by a neighbouring circus.

Since the weird (and wonderful, if you’re a City fan) win at Anfield, Enzo Maresca’s team have played three games, all at home. They were undressed by PSG, held off Ipswich last weekend and hammered AEK on Tuesday. Oh, and Elliot Anderson made the James Bond shortlist.

City are top of the Premier League with a perfect record of seven wins from seven. But like life, The Shining and those dreams in which all your teeth fall out, nobody really knows what it means. City are on 21 points, but for all we know it could effectively be -29. Yes, I have just pulled that number from my fundament. No, I don’t have any inside knowledge.

The only thing the City players – who, lest we forget, had nowt to do with the 115 charges – can win football matches and see where it takes them.

Today’s will be tougher than most. Unai Emery has somehow squashed a year of transition into a month. Villa lost six of their Europa League-winning XI in the summer and started the season terribly. But they have won five of the last six games and are playing with a rhythm that belies the summer rebuild. On recent evidence, losing all those great players really was just a flesh wound.

Kick off 12.30pm.

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