After pulling out a 1-1 Champions League draw against Borussia Dortmund in the middle of the week, Manchester City will look to fare even better against Sunderland on Saturday.  The team's most recent underperformance has concerned both manager Roberto Mancini and their fans. 

Manchester City's endurance was not up to par in their Wednesday matchup.  Before the disappointing outcome, it took an Edin Dzeko score in the 87th minute of the game for them to compile all three points last weekend in a mid-table match against Fulham.

Although City could use a dominant victory to restore their broken confidence, Sunderland hasn't gone down easy against them in the recent past.  At Etihad last season, Manchester City barely mustered out a draw after being behind 1-3 with five minutes left of play in regulation time. 

To add insult to injury, most City fans cannot forget Dong-Won Ji's winning shot in sudden death against them on New Year's Day.  Nonetheless, Sunderland is still undefeated and could potentially break the game open early on assuming City's defensive woes continue to plague them.  However, the performance of goal keeper Joe Hart has kept them in most games.

Unbeaten in five matches, Sunderland is off to a seemingly odd start to their season.  However, they have one win , four draws and have given up seven points, which is only good enough for a three-way eleventh place tie with Swansea City and Stoke City.  The small factors have definitely compromised Sunderland under the win column, which includes the crucial goal they ceded at West Ham.

CLICK HERE to watch Manchester City vs. Sunderland.  Coverage will begin at 12:45 BST.  View the projected starting lineups below.

PROJECTED STARTING LINEUPS:

Manchester City:  Hart; Zabaleta, Kompany, Lescott, Clichy; Rodwell, Barry, Yaya Toure, Silva,  Aguero, Tevez

Sunderland:

Mignolet; Rose, Gardner, O'Shea, Bramble; Larsson, Colback, Johnson; McClean, Fletcher, Sessegnon. 

Tags: English Premiere League television soccer