Saturday's game will prove that Salah is the best in the Premier League and not Haaland

This Saturday is the day: the big derby between Pep Guardiola's Manchester City and Jürgen Klopp's Liverpool. Leaders and runners-up respectively (one point behind) in the Premier League. The two teams that have won every English league since 2017-18 (5 for City and one for Liverpool). The duel between the two coaches who have had the biggest impact on football in recent times, City's Guardiola and Liverpool's Klopp.

City-Liverpool will see the two top scorers in the Premiership go head to head: Erling Haaland, with 13 goals, and Mohamed Salah with 10. The top-scoring team in the competition so far, City (with 32 in 12 games), against the third, Liverpool, with 27 (like Newcastle), both behind Unai Emery's Aston Villa (29). And the lowest-scoring side, the Reds (10, tied with Mikel Arteta's Arsenal), against the second lowest-scoring Citizens (12).

But there are other figures about this City-Liverpool match. According to SofaScore, so far Guardiola's team's highest rated player so far in the Premier League is not Haaland, but Rodri, with 3 goals, 2 assists, and 1.2 key passes per game, plus 6.8 turnovers. For Liverpool, the highest rated is Salah (10 goals, 4 assists, scores every 105 minutes, makes 2.25 key passes and creates 11 chances. In the duel of the 'nines', Haaland beats Darwin Núñez by 13 goals scored to 4, with 3 assists for the Norwegian to 4 for the Uruguayan, who is on a clear upward trend.  Haaland converts 43.5 per cent of clear-cut chances and scores every 79 minutes. Darwin Núñez, 23.1 per cent of clear-cut chances and scores a goal every 152'.

<strong>Salah is better than Haaland </strong>

Overall, also analysing the overall data at team level, the SofaScore study rates Manchester City's performance so far in the current Premiership at 7.28 and Liverpool at 7.06. In terms of possession, though, 62.5 per cent for the Citizens to 58.8 per cent for the Reds. Overall, the analysis gives City a 57 per cent chance of winning the game at the Etihad, 24 per cent for Liverpool and 19 per cent for a draw. Of course, Klopp, over the course of their careers, has beaten Guardiola 12 times, with 10 wins for Pep and only five draws. Nobody has beaten Pep more than Klopp.