De Bruyne fit to feature as Foden gets another start for injury-hit Manchester City

Kevin De Bruyne (£11.6m) has recovered from a midweek blow to the head to start for an injury-ravaged Manchester City in their first home league match of the season.

Leicester City are the visitors to the Etihad, with kick-off at 16:30 BST.

The pre-deadline rumours surrounding a possible absence for Gabriel Jesus (£9.5m) turned out to be true, with the Brazilian ruled out for a month by his manager in quotes released on Saturday night.

With Sergio Aguero (£10.4m) also sidelined until the end of October at the earliest, one of Pep Guardiola’s midfielders will be leading the line against the Foxes this afternoon.

De Bruyne, Raheem Sterling (£11.5m), Phil Foden (£6.6m) all keep their places, while Riyad Mahrez (£8.4m) steps up in place of the injured Jesus.

Guardiola’s only other alteration from Gameweek 2 sees Eric Garcia (£4.9m) replace John Stones (£5.0m) at centre-half.

It’s wasn’t far off a case of the City starting XI picking itself, particularly in attack: Ferran Torres (£7.0m), who hardly has bags of experience himself, is the only senior midfielder or foward available to Guardiola on the bench.

Aymeric Laporte (£6.0m) and Oleksandr Zinchenko (£5.5m) are fit enough for substitute roles, at least, with the defensive pair having had their starts to 2020/21 disrupted by illness and injury.

Teenage striker Liam Delap (£4.5m) is also among the hosts’ replacements.

Brendan Rodgers, like his opposite number, has made two changes for this fixture.

The injured Wilfred Ndidi (£5.0m), who had been operating as a makeshift centre-back, is replaced by Jonny Evans (£5.5m), who returns from suspension.

Ayoze Perez (£6.4m) drops to the bench, meanwhile, with budget FPL defender Daniel Amartey (£4.0m) making a rare start.

James Maddison (£7.0m) is again only amongst the substitutes.

De Bruyne is the most-captained Fantasy asset of Gameweek 3, with just under one million managers handing the armband to the Belgian.

Over 800,000 FPL bosses brought De Bruyne into their sides following his 13-point haul at Molineux last Monday.

James Justin (£4.7m) has overtaken Jamie Vardy (£10.0m) as Leicester’s most-owned FPL asset, with more than one in five of us now owning the budget defender.

Timothy Castagne (£5.6m) is the leading points-scorer among FPL defenders, with both he and Justin registering attacking returns in each of their appearances so far.

Manchester City XI: Ederson, Walker, Garcia, Ake, Mendy, Rodrigo, Fernandinho, De Bruyne, Mahrez, Sterling, Foden.

Leicester City XI: Schmeichel, Justin, Amartey, Evans, Soyuncu, Castagne, Mendy, Tielemans, Praet, Barnes, Vardy.

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Lessons Learned from FPL Gameweek 3

• Brighton and Hove Albion 2-3 Manchester United
• Crystal Palace 1-2 Everton
• West Bromwich Albion 3-3 Chelsea
• Burnley 0-1 Southampton
• Sheffield United 0-1 Leeds United
• Tottenham Hotspur 1-1 Newcastle United
• Manchester City 2-5 Leicester City
• West Ham United 4-0 Wolverhampton Wanderers
• Fulham 0-3 Aston Villa
• Liverpool 3-1 Arsenal