Man City arrive at Aston Villa with a point to prove - as varying pundit predictions prove

Manchester City return to action on Saturday lunchtime as they make the difficult trip to take on Aston Villa in the Premier League.

Pep Guardiola's side make the trip to the West Midlands on the back of a dire run of just one win in their last 11 matches and they need to quickly reverse their fortunes if they are to revive their season.

However, they take on a Villa side who continue to impress under Unai Emery, both in the League and in the Champions League, and City know they will have to be at their best to emerge from their trip to Birmingham with three points.

And that has largely been reflected in the varying predictions of a number of prominent Premier League pundits, which have been rounded up below.

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The former Blackburn and Celtic forward told BBC Sport: "Aston Villa are 10 points worse off than the same stage of last season, when they were in second place with 35 points from 16 games.

"This time, they are seventh and if you look at their results in the Premier League so far then, apart from when they saw off Fulham in October, they have only beaten teams in the bottom half of the table.

"I don't want to call them flat-track bullies but they are only getting wins against the weaker teams. Maybe we have to put Manchester City in that bracket too at the moment, though?

"In terms of form over the past eight games then only Leicester and Southampton have picked up fewer points than Pep Guardiola's side.

"I keep thinking they will kick back into life, but they actually seem to be getting worse. Everyone is trying to come up with the reason for their poor results -