Man City vs Liverpool LIVE: Premier League team news and line-ups as Erling Haaland starts

The two had epic battles in 2018-19 and 2021-22, when City pipped their north-west rivals by just a single point, while in between those campaigns the Reds clinched their first championship in 30 years.

It is the closest Liverpool have been to City in 18 months and Van Dijk believes with consistency in results and fitness they can mount a sustained challenge.

Jurgen Klopp has described Mohamed Salah as a “completely different animal” to the player he signed in 2017 and said the Egyptian is determined to improve again.

The Reds visit the Etihad Stadium on Saturday lunchtime for the latest instalment of a classic rivalry that has so often gone a long way to deciding the destination of the Premier League title.

City go into the game one point ahead of Klopp’s side, who look their most realistic title challengers, even if Guardiola says Arsenal and Tottenham are also in the race.

Guardiola has had some battles over the years, notably with Jose Mourinho, but says Klopp has made him a better manager.

Pep Guardiola makes one change to the Manchester City team that spectacularly drew 4-4 against Chelsea just before the international break. Josko Gvardiol drops out with Nathan Ake slotting in at left-back.

Guardiola is presumably going with a back four of Kyle Walker, Ruben Dias, Manuel Akanji and Ake with Bernardo Silva dropping slightly deeper alongside Rodri. But then, as it’s Guardiola you never can tell. Erling Haaland is fit to start and leads the line.

Jurgen Klopp meanwhile makes a couple of changes to Liverpool’s midfield. Wataru Endō and Cody Gakpo drop out with Alexis Mac Allister and Curtis Jones coming in.

Man City XI: Ederson, Walker, Akanji, Dias, Ake, Rodrigo, Bernardo, Foden, Doku, Alvarez, Haaland

Liverpool XI: Alisson, Alexander-Arnold, Matip, Van Dijk, Tsimikas, Mac Allister, Szobozslai, Jones, Salah, Nunez, Jota

Jurgen Klopp cast himself as the philosophical opposite of his rival for Saturday’s crunch match. They have been pitted against each other for a decade now, Klopp and Pep Guardiola, over 28 meetings from the German Super Cup to the Community Shield, via the FA, Carabao and German cups, the Bundesliga, the Premier League and the Champions League. They will be in neighbouring technical areas at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday when Manchester City host Liverpool, just as they are side by side again in the league table, for a game Klopp said he “would watch wherever I was on the planet”.

And while he will willingly admit that Guardiola is an influence, he compared himself to his great rival by drawing a distinction between them.

Asked whether there could be any severity of punishment which would make him consider his position, Guardiola replied: “It’s a good question. I will answer when I have the sentence.

“You are questioning like we have been punished. And in the moment we are innocent until guilt is proven. I know the people want it. I know, I feel it. I will wait.”

After failing to mount a genuine title challenge last season in an uneven campaign, a solid start to the season will have pleased Jurgen Klopp, though he will recognise that this will be a major test of his team’s credentials.

And Carragher is unsure if Liverpool have the defensive strength to match their hosts.

Jamie Carragher highlights key Manchester City v Liverpool battle:

The safer approach would be merely to look for incremental improvement, to eye the dotted line that traditionally separates the European elite from the rest, to say the objective for Liverpool’s season was simply to return to the Champions League. But then, as anyone who has seen Trent Alexander-Arnold pass a ball knows, he can eschew the risk-free option. There is ambition to his distribution; to his rhetoric, too.

“Our aim as a team is to win the league and that’s the aim again this season,” said the Liverpool vice-captain. And if he was neither saying Liverpool will win the Premier League or are the favourites to do so, the right-back is unafraid of setting a lofty target. “Our ambition is to be as successful as possible and to maximise the potential we have got as a team and as a club,” he added. “At the start of last season it was the same as at the start of this season: our ambition was to win the league. We were nowhere near good enough to get anywhere near that last year and that’s where we needed to put it right this year.”

More from the Reds’ vice-captain:

Although Norway insisted the injury was “not serious”, Haaland withdrew from the squad and returned to Manchester for treatment ahead of this weekend’s top-of-the-table clash.