Michael Owen is expecting Chelsea to secure a narrow victory against Manchester City at Stamford Bridge tomorrow afternoon.

The BT Sport pundit believes Blues’ boss Thomas Tuchel has Pep Guardiola’s number tactically and he is backing the home side to come out on top:

“Tuchel won all three games against City last season, knocking them out of two cups along the way. After beating them in the Champions League Final in Porto, it’s clear to me that this is a good matchup for Chelsea. I’d expect City to bounce back from a poor performance last week, but I think Chelsea will be too strong here and narrowly edge it.”

Owen has gone with a 2-1 win for Chelsea, which seems like a pretty reasonable prediction going by the recent performances of the two teams.

City will be without both Aymeric Laporte and John Stones for the match, which suggests they could be vulnerable at the back and, with Tuchel’s side having been so tight defensively at the start of the campaign, that could prove to be a key difference between the two teams.

Even so, the Premier League champions should not be underestimated. They can take away games from their opponents in a blink of an eye when in top form, and Tuchel will be hoping his team don’t start as slowly as they did against Spurs last weekend.