Express & Star

Steve Bull: Man City will be Julen Lopetegui's biggest test yet

Manchester City have strength in depth, are skilful all over the park and will be Julen Lopetegui’s biggest test since taking over at Wolves.

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Julen Lopetegui. (AP Photo/Rui Vieira).

Whoever they bring off the bench has the same quality as the player that comes off. It will be a really tough game.

We never know what will happen at the Etihad and what Wolves team will be put out and turn up. We all remember the 2-0 win there in 2019 when Adama Traore netted two brilliant goals!

The club has made some additions and it will be interesting to see what starting XI Lopetegui goes for.

Either way, we have to go up there and not give them too much respect. We have to play with confidence and know that we can give it a good go.

How do you stop Erling Haaland? You lock him in the boot room!

He’s a beast. He’s an absolutely class player who is very skilful and a natural goalscorer.

He will take some stopping but if that’s not enough motivation for our defenders to try and stop him, then something is wrong.

For me, he’s the best striker in the world at the moment, so it’s a great opportunity for our defence.

Meanwhile, it was a bit disappointing to drop out of the FA Cup in the way we did, I thought we’d have a really good go at it.

We started really well and I thought it was the best 10 minutes I’ve seen us play this season, but we took our foot off the gas and allowed Liverpool to get their goal and dominate the rest of the first half.

They have a lot of class in their side, even if they didn’t put the first team out.

Looking at the sides both teams put out, I’d have hoped Wolves could win that game.

We don’t have as much squad depth as Liverpool but had enough in the side to win the game.

We took the game to them in the second half but couldn’t find that equaliser. We now need to lick our wounds and concentrate on the league. We now have one thing to concentrate on – getting away from that relegation zone!