Manchester City vs Chelsea Women's Super League preview: Team news, predicted lineups, ones to watch, previous meetings and how to watch

Two points are what is separating the hosts and the guest before this massive midweek clash in the Women's Super League.

Manchester City and Chelsea have been performing game after game this season and not even Arsenal or Manchester United have been able to keep up.

It is very likely that Academy Stadium will be the place where this season's league winners will be decided on Wednesday night.

The game will kick off at 18:00 UK time.

Team news

After not having made an appearance since her 200th game for City, the Sky Blues' captain Steph Houghton will not be back for this one. Apart from Houghton, Gareth Taylor have a fully fit squad to chose from when his team will welcome the Blues from London tonight.

Emma Hayes' message at yesterday's press conference was that, apart from long-term injured Maren Mjelde, her squad is also fully fit and ready to battle this one out in Manchester this evening. This would mean that Chelsea skipper, Magdalena Eriksson, who left last Friday's FA Cup game after what seemed to look like an ankle injury after a bad landing, has recovered.

Predicted lineups

Manchester City

Roebuck (GK)
Bronze, Dahlkemper, Greenwood, Stokes
Mewis, Walsh, Weir
Kelly, White, Hemp

Chelsea

Berger (GK)
Charles, Bright, Eriksson, Andersson
Leupolz, Ingle, Cuthbert
Harder
Kirby, Kerr

Ones to watch

Leading Manchester City's attacking forces Lauren Hemp and Chloe Kelly have together produced 12 goals and 14 assists in total in the league according to WyScout. Kelly is a constant threat on her left-hand side with her runs and dribbles while Hemp is copying her teammates moves on the right-hand side. Both of them always ready to assist the Sky Blues' experienced striker Ellen White upfront. White has scored 9 league goals his season.

The Academy Stadium will have the honour to field several world-class players with several qualities tonight and there's a certainty of the fact that Sam Kerr and Fran Kirby, together with Pernille Harder are all ready to put hard work into this so that Chelsea can secure their second league title in a row. According to WyScout this trident have scored 39 out of the Blues 60 scored goals in the WSL this season so far.

Previous meetings

Two meetings between these WSL giants have taken place this season. One league game at Kingsmeadow and one quarter-final in the Continental Cup at the Academy Stadium. Both meetings have ended with Chelsea leaving the pitch as winners. Results; 3-1 and 4-2.

But what one should be aware of is that Chelsea have never won a WSL league game against City at the Academy Stadium. The Sky Blue have won their last 12 league games and they have kept a clean sheet in six of them.

While City suffered a bitter loss against FC Barcelona in the UEFA Women's Champions League in the quarter-final with an aggregated score of 4-2, Chelsea are set to play FC Bayern München in the semi-final of the fashionable tournament on Sunday.

When this game kicks off, both these WSL sides have the chance to win the league and the outcome of Wednesday night's game is likely to decide which team will end up with the silverware of the season 2020/21.