Article by Dragoș Petrescu, Cosmin Nistor – Published on Sunday, 04 January 2026, 19:24 / Updated on Sunday, 04 January 2026 19:33
Manchester City and Chelsea meet NOW at the Etihad Stadium in the most anticipated duel of the round #20 in the Premier League. The match can be watched in liveTEXT format on the GSP.ro website and live, for a fee, via the VOYO platform.
The full schedule of round #20 of the Premier League
LIVE » Manchester City – Chelsea 0-0
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Manchester City – Chelsea, starting teams:
MANCHESTER CITY (4-3-2-1): Donnarumma – Nunes, Dias, Gvardiol, O'Reilly – B. Silva, Rodri, Reijnders – Cherki, Foden – Haaland
Reserves: Trafford – Ake, Doku, Heskey, Khusanov, Lewis, McAidoo, Mfuni, Mukasa
Coach: Pep Guardiola
CHELSEA (4-2-3-1): Jorgensen – R. James, Badiashile, Chalobah, Gusto – A. Santos, E. Fernandez – Neto, Palmer, Estevao – J. Pedro
Reserves: Merrick, Slonina – Adarabioyo, A. Santos, Delap, Garnacho, Gittens, Guiu, Hato
Coach: Calum McFarlane
Stadium: Etihad Stadium (Manchester)
Referee: Michael Oliver
The Citizens need a win to stay close to Arsenal
Ahead of the big derby at the Etihad, Pep Guardiola's side dropped to the bottom step of the Premier League podium after Aston Villa won comfortably at home to Nottingham Forest 3-1 to move up to second.
However, a win today will see the Manchester outfit regain second place in the Championship and close the gap to four lengths on leaders Arsenal, who, like Villa, prevailed at this stage, 3-2 at Bournemouth.
Although they seemed to be trailing in the title race, City were kept in check by the newly promoted Sunderland on the very first day of the new year, the “citizens” ending the duel at the Stadium of Light with a score of 0-0, a result that allowed the “gunners” to breathe a little more.
Even so, with half a season left to play, Pep Guardiola is far from having his last word and the Etihad side will be doing all they can to capture a 9th Premier League title.
Chelsea, in the first match without Enzo Maresca on the technical bench
On the other hand, the London club is going through a mini-crisis internally. In the last three legs, Chelsea have failed to win a single match, recording two draws (2-2 with both Bournemouth and Newcastle) and one defeat (1-2 with Aston Villa).
Following these results, the formation from Stamford Bridge dropped to the 5th place in the league table in England, thus losing the last position leading to the Champions League at the expense of the champions Liverpool.
What's more, the points conceded in their last three games have seen Chelsea now sit just four points adrift of 14th-placed Newcastle United, whether or not the situation is extremely balanced in mid-table.
As a result, Chelsea's bosses wanted to change something, and in the end, after an extensive discussion with the technician Enzo Maresca, the two sides decided to go their separate ways.
At the moment, Calum McFarlane will sit on the bench of the Londoners, and it follows that in the near future, the band from Stamford Bridge will find a new coach. Most likely, Maresca's permanent replacement on the Londoners' bench will be Liam Rosenior, the current coach of Strasbourg.
Premier League standings:
