Pep Guardiola's last home match at the Etihad lands on the same afternoon as Villa's Champions League fourth-place defence
Manchester City vs Aston Villa is rarely the most loaded fixture on a Premier League weekend, but Sunday afternoon at the Etihad is the exception. Pep Guardiola manages his last home game in charge of the club after a decade, twenty trophies and the renaming of the North Stand in his honour. Aston Villa, four days on from the Europa League final, arrive with the fourth-place Premier League seat still in their own hands.
The Pep Guardiola Stand is open for the first time on Sunday. The newly expanded North Stand adds more than 7,000 seats, lifts Etihad capacity above 61,000 and was timed for this fixture. A statue of Guardiola has also been commissioned on the approach to the stand. Sheikh Mansour signed off both honours in the days before the match.
Guardiola's decade in numbers
Guardiola joined Manchester City in 2016 and leaves with twenty major trophies, more than the club had accumulated in the 136 years before he walked in. Six Premier League titles came in 2017/18, 2018/19, 2020/21, 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24, including the first four-in-a-row sequence in English top-flight history. Add three FA Cups, five Carabao Cups, the 2022/23 Champions League won 1-0 against Inter, the 2023 UEFA Super Cup and the 2023 FIFA Club World Cup.
City finish second on 78 points but have known the table was out of their hands since Tuesday. Junior Kroupi opened for Bournemouth at the Vitality, curling a finish into the top right corner before half-time, and Erling Haaland equalised in the 95th minute. The 1-1 draw handed the Premier League to Arsenal and turned Sunday's home match into a farewell occasion before it had been picked for kickoff.
Stones and Bernardo Silva also out the door
Two more City eras close on the same afternoon. John Stones, who arrived from Everton in August 2016 a few weeks after Guardiola, leaves as a free agent with six Premier League titles and a Champions League medal on his shelf. Injury limited him to four Premier League starts this season, but the home crowd's reaction to him on the pitch is one of the moments Sunday is built around.
Bernardo Silva leaves as a free agent after nine years and 459 appearances. He arrived from Monaco in 2017 and leaves with six Premier League titles, the Champions League, three FA Cups and four Carabao Cups, 19 major trophies in total. The line-up tonight will mix the kind of starts that close careers with the ones that protect City's Champions League side next season.
What Villa need at the Etihad
Villa walk in on 62 points, three clear of Liverpool with one match left. A point at the Etihad locks the fourth Premier League seat and the route into the Champions League group stage rather than the Europa League. Anything less and Liverpool, playing Brentford at Anfield at the same 4pm kickoff, can jump to fourth with a win.
Unai Emery's team is four days off the 3-0 win against Freiburg in Istanbul, the club's first European trophy since the 1982 European Cup. Tielemans, Buendía and Rogers all scored in that final and all are likely to be rotated. Emiliano Martínez is the most notable absentee in goal through injury, with Marco Bizot expected to start.
The rest of the 4pm afternoon
The simultaneous kickoffs across the Premier League leave one narrow back door open at the top five. Villa fourth and Liverpool fifth is the expected scenario. Sixth-placed Bournemouth, away at Nottingham Forest's City Ground for Andoni Iraola's last weekend in charge, need a Liverpool defeat at Anfield and a six-goal goal-difference swing to overhaul them. The maths is awkward but alive.
City's Premier League season fades out at 6pm tonight. The next of these home occasions, whenever it lands, won't have Guardiola, Stones or Bernardo in it.
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