There were eight match previews in today's two newsletters and you can read one of them below..............

Premier League: Liverpool- Sunderland

Sunderland were dreadfully unfortunate not to take at least a point for their home game with Manchester City in midweek, they lost 1-0, but were denied by the woodwork and laid seige to the City goal in the second half. The Black Cats played with real self belief and a steely determination we have not seen much of this season and the impact of the new signings was obvious. Ahead of the game I wrote ............
 

We have spent a lot of time discussing Sunderland recently and you can read much of that content within the preview of their home game with Bournemouth which is reproduced below the "good luck" signoff (edit: see the Tuesday newsletter). In that I spoke about their improvemnt under Sam Allardyce on home soil, his record of keeping clubs in the top flight and "overachieving" and this being his first opportunity at the club to bring in his own players. In addition to Kirchhoff and N'Doye (see both below), Allardyce has had a real clear out, unloading several players he deemed surplus to requirements and trading to also get Lamine Kone from Lorient and Wahbi Khazri,who has been so influential for Bordeaux, into the club. The newcomers might need a little time and that is what the Black Cats do not have much of and tonight is a baptism of fire for anyone who plays, but the hosts look much more solid now.  City have their eyes on four titles and look back on track, but they are certainly not any stronger without Kevin de Bruyne and Vincent Kompany, this will be their eighth start already of 2016 (two more than Sunderland, who have had ten days to prepare for this fixture) and something will have to give somewhere along the line. In the next four weeks, they play this, a top of the table clash with leaders Leicester City on Saturday, then 4th placed Tottenham, Chelsea away in the FA Cup, a road Champions League game in the Ukraine, a Capital One Cup final with Liverpool and an away league game at Anfield. I would not exactly see it that way, but you could make a case for this being the least important of all those games and they certainly have to look at the bigger picture, on March 2nd, they will have played 17 games inside 67 days, 11 on the road !

Sunderland have a strong record in this fixture, winning four of the last five EPL meetings at the Stadium of Light, although they did lose 4-1 here last season. The hosts have scored in the last eight h2h meetings and I expect them to do so again this evening, with City having looked vulnerable in three recent away starts at Everton(lost) , West Ham United (trailed twice) and Watford (losing with 8 minutes to play) and they could easily have tasted defeat in all three.

Good Luck.