Manchester City visits Aston Villa on Saturday to officially kickoff “festive fixtures,” a period over the holidays that consists of an extremely high number of games. It’s fixture congestion on steroids meets Christmas, Boxing Day and New Year’s. The festive fixture over-scheduling is also the perfect metaphor for where we are when it comes to the business of sports these days.
In the world of sports, here’s who matters- television networks that broadcast the games. That’s it.
Manchester City at Aston Villa FYIs
Kick off: 8:15 pm, Saturday December 21, 12:30pm, Villa Park, Birmingham, UK
Preview Content for Both Sides: Team News Starting XI Prediction
PL Position: Man City 5th, 27 pts Aston Villa 7th, 25 pts
Form Guide: Man City LLWDL Aston Villa DLWWL
Google Result Probability: Man City 46% Aston Villa 29% Draw 25%
Well, them and all the insurance companies, fast food corporations and pharmaceuticals that incessantly advertise during these sporting events. That is all the leagues care about! This is true for all big money sports, everywhere. The leagues do not care about the players, coaches, fans, supporters, media members, at all; period full stop.
Okay now that my rant is over, I’ll step off the soapbox and get to the first team forecasts here.
Starting XI Predictions
Man City
Ederson; Kyle Walker, Ruben Dias, Josko Gvardiol, Rico Lewis; Mateo Kovacic; Bernardo Silva, Kevin De Bruyne, Phil Foden, Jeremy Doku; Erling Haaland
Aston Villa
Emi Martinez; Ezra Konsa, Diego Carlos, Pau Torres, Lucas Digne; Boubacar Kamara, Youri Tielemans; Matty Cash, Rogers, John McGinn; Ollie Watkins
Paul M. Banks is the Founding Editor of The Sports Bank. He’s also the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He currently contributes to USA Today’s NFL Wires Network, the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America and RG. His past bylines include the New York Daily News, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Washington Post and ESPN. You can follow him on Linked In and Twitter.