RB Leipzig vs Man City: Demichelis faces his old club, and City keep conceding early

Martin Demichelis spent three years at Manchester City winning the Premier League and two League Cups. On Wednesday night he tries to beat them, with a Leipzig side that hasn’t conceded a league goal at home all season.

The timing could hardly be worse for Enzo Maresca. Seven straight Premier League wins have turned into back-to-back defeats, Arsenal have gone three points clear at the top, and City arrive in Germany with a habit of falling behind early that nobody at the Etihad can explain away anymore.

RB Leipzig are in the opposite mood. They are down in 29th in the 36-team Champions League table with three points, but they have won three in a row in all competitions, including 2-0 at Schalke on Saturday, and their own ground has become a fortress.

That is the tension running through RB Leipzig vs Man City: a wobbling favourite against an underdog that is suddenly flying at home.

When and where is RB Leipzig vs Man City?

Date: Wednesday 4 November 2026

Kick-off: 8pm UK time

Venue: Red Bull Arena, Leipzig

Competition: Champions League, league phase, matchday four

Match officials

Italian referee Marco Guida takes charge, with Giorgio Peretti and Giuseppe Perrotti running the lines and Matteo Marcenaro as fourth official. Daniele Chiffi is on VAR, assisted by Marco Di Bello.

Leipzig vs City team news

RB Leipzig

Assan Ouedraogo (shoulder) and Marc Guiu (muscle) are still out, and former Burnley defender Maxime Esteve is a doubt after a knock kept him out of the Schalke win.

The big question is Christopher Nkunku. He sat on the bench for the whole of Saturday’s game, and whether he is ready to start is unclear. If he is, City know exactly what he can do to them: he scored a hat-trick at the Etihad in September 2021 and still finished on the losing side in a 6-3 defeat.

Christoph Baumgartner is pushing to come back into central midfield, which would probably cost Rocco Reitz his place.

Manchester City

Maresca has an almost full squad. City trained with a 23-man group on Tuesday morning before flying out, and Antoine Semenyo was the only senior player missing. His knee injury is expected to keep him out until December.

Ryan McAidoo and Kaden Braithwaite were not in the group, while Floyd Samba was. Maresca and Phil Foden face the media in Germany on Tuesday evening.

Can City stop the early goals?

This is the problem Maresca has to fix first. Yasin Ayari’s goal on 11 minutes was enough for Brighton to win 1-0 at the Etihad on Saturday, three days after City had needed penalties to get past Brighton in the League Cup. It was the third time in five league games that City had conceded inside the first quarter of an hour.

Before that, Nicolas Jackson punished a Marc Guehi mistake after six minutes in the defeat at Aston Villa. Across their last six games City have let in 12 goals, four of them in the 4-2 home loss to Paris Saint-Germain in this competition.

Maresca didn’t hide from it after Brighton. “In this moment we are conceding silly goals that we can avoid and hopefully we can avoid in the next game,” he said. “For sure we are not happy. The players, me, the coaching staff, no one is happy when we lose games at all.”

That is a dangerous thing to carry into Leipzig. Under Demichelis they like to press hard and go forward quickly and directly, and they scored twice in the first five minutes of their 6-0 win over Eintracht Frankfurt. If City start slowly again, this ground will punish them.

Why Leipzig at home is a different team

Leipzig have won nine Bundesliga home games in a row, a club record. Their four league games at the Red Bull Arena this season have produced 18 goals for and none against. Away from home in Europe it has been another story, with 4-1 defeats at Como and Real Madrid either side of a 1-0 home win over PSV Eindhoven, when Brajan Gruda scored late and Maarten Vandevoordt saved a penalty.

There is one stat that should give City some comfort. Leipzig have lost their last five UEFA games against English sides.

Demichelis against his old club

Demichelis made 15 Champions League appearances for City between 2013-14 and 2015-16. He took over at Leipzig in June and has made it clear he isn’t hanging around if things go wrong. “I know I have to achieve goals with RB Leipzig. That is why I am here. And if we do not achieve those goals by the end of the season, I will leave of my own accord,” he said after the Schalke win.

Beating the club where he won his English titles would be a decent way to start meeting those targets.

Who decides this one?

Erling Haaland

No opponent has suffered more from Haaland. He has 12 goals in eight games against Leipzig, including five in City’s 7-0 win in the last-16 second leg in 2022-23. His scoring run ended against Brighton, but there is no better fixture for starting a new one.

Antonio Nusa

The Norwegian winger, the same player Arsenal looked at again after Bukayo Saka’s injury, has four league goals and a joint league-leading six assists. Demichelis called him “one of the best wingers in Europe right now”. Whoever plays right-back for City will be busy.

Rayan Cherki

City looked flat on Saturday until Cherki came on after 55 minutes. He changed the game for a while, and he looks the most likely player to come straight into the side as the number 10.

RB Leipzig vs Man City predicted lineups

We expect Baumgartner to return for Leipzig, with Nkunku more likely to be used from the bench after sitting out the whole of Saturday’s game. For City, Cherki and Foden come in, and Guehi replaces Abdukodir Khusanov alongside Ruben Dias. We would also give Nico O’Reilly the left-back spot after Josko Gvardiol’s difficult afternoon against Brighton, and bring in a fresh Mateo Kovacic, who was unused on Saturday, for Enzo Fernandez.

RB Leipzig predicted lineup (4-3-3): Vandevoordt; Baku, Orban, Lukeba, Raum; Banzuzi, El Aynaoui, Baumgartner; Gruda, Romulo, Nusa

Manchester City predicted lineup (4-2-3-1): Donnarumma; Nunes, Dias, Guehi, O’Reilly; Anderson, Kovacic; Foden, Cherki, Doku; Haaland

Our RB Leipzig vs Man City prediction

The last six meetings between these clubs produced 30 goals, and City won four of them. Leipzig’s home form and their fast starts mean City will almost certainly have to come from behind or survive a storm at some point. We still think Haaland and a City side with Cherki back in it have enough to win a busy game.

Prediction: RB Leipzig 2-3 Manchester City