Pep Guardiola welcomes back Man City's Everton specialist to get Liverpool on the run again

Going game by game and focusing upon the here and now is a mantra that has served Pep Guardiola well at Manchester City.

But a leaf back through the recent history of fixtures with Everton suggests there is an obvious selection to be made at Goodison Park on Saturday.

Gabriel Jesus is back in training and should go straight back into the starting XI for his first action since sustaining an injury on international duty with Brazil last month.

“Gabriel is so important in many aspects that we don’t have,” Guardiola said at his Friday news conference.

“In the first press, when we need a guy for the movements in behind, he is unpredictable in the final third. For many aspects, he is so important.”

While that element of unpredictability - a capacity to operate off-the-cuff that is synonymous with so many of the best players from his homeland - is undoubtedly valuable, something about Jesus in this particular fixture is very predictable indeed.

When City thumped Everton 5-0 on the final day of last season and Gabriel scored as part of a strong but ultimately unsuccessful audition for a starting spot in the Champions League final, it was his eighth Premier League goal against the Toffees in as many appearances.

Indeed, his time in Manchester runs exactly parallel with the period when a once problematic fixture for the Blues became something far more enjoyable.

The game immediately before Jesus made his January 2017 debut as a substitute against Tottenham saw a ramshackle City walloped 4-0 during Guardiola’s uneven first campaign in charge.

He got off to an inauspicious start against Everton at the beginning of the following season, substituted at half-time after Kyle Walker was sent off before his replacement Raheem