Chris Sutton has highlighted one advantage that Manchester City have ahead of their upcoming Premier League match against Wolves.
Last weekend saw the Citizens take a step closer to potentially regaining the Premier League title as they beat Nottingham Forest 2-0.
The Blues went 1-0 up after Josko Gvardiol scored his second goal of the campaign with a header from a corner.
Then in the second half, Erling Haaland doubled the visitor’s lead just nine minutes after he came on as a substitute.
For their latest outing, City are back on home turf to take on the Old Gold, who secured a 2-1 victory against Pep Guardiola’s side back in September at Molineux.
Looking ahead to this game, one pundit has claimed that one setback the citizens have suffered in recent weeks could now be a blessing in disguise.
Sutton drops Man City claim ahead of Wolves match
In his latest column for BBC Sport where he previewed and predicted the scores for this latest round of Premier League fixtures, Sutton had this to say about City’s match against Wolves and what benefit they have heading into the game.
He said: “It definitely helps Manchester City that they are not in the Champions League because their full focus can be on this game.
“City boss Pep Guardiola says his players are tired but they are unlikely to get much sympathy about that when they can bring Erling Haaland off the bench, like they did against Forest.
“Wolves beat them at Molineux in September, but that is not going to happen again.
“Gary O’Neil’s side saw off Luton last week but their form has fallen away in recent weeks and this should be comfortable for City. 3-0.”
Will City benefit from no European games?
As Sutton mentioned, City were knocked out of the Champions League in the quarter-final stage by Real Madrid.
If they had managed to get past the Spanish club, they would have had to play Bayern Munich away from home between last weekend’s match against Forest and tomorrow’s showdown with Wolves.
Instead, the squad have had the entire week to prepare for this latest game in what looks to be another close title race.
While this could be a benefit for City’s fitness heading into tomorrow’s match at the Etihad, we feel that everyone at the club would have preferred to still be in the Champions League and still have the chance to win a consecutive Treble.