The phrase “game of the season” is an often used piece of
rhetoric in this “must see”, cannot miss age of football, but tonight’s first
leg of the Champions League last 16 tie between Manchester City and Barcelona
may have earned that title and we could be in for a blockbuster.
It is not many times that Barcelona face a team that has
scored more goals then them in all competitions this season but City’s 117 is 6
more than Tata Martino’s men have racked up so far into the campaign. Manuel
Pellegrini’s promise to resist the usual tactics employed against Barcelona put
a mouth-watering clash on the table, but a stoic lineup – with Alvaro Negredo’s
superb season rewarded with a prime spot up front, Alexander Kolarov playing at
left midfield, and Martin Demechelis at centre back with Feandinhio – with his
absence having hurt them badly in a 1-0 defeat to Chelsea - fit again.
Pellegrini’s stance, if truly replicated, means that it is
not a certainty that we will plenty of the goal filled, end to end games that we’ve
seen from them this season instead of the robust counter attacking efforts that
many have mounted in recent seasons - including Chelsea’s 1-0 win at Stamford
Bridge in 2012.
City’s new ownership came with the aim of breaking onto the
European stage but successful moments have been few and far between until
Manuel Pellegrini’s arrival this season. The Chilean’s more attacking stance
compared to Roberto Mancini has seen City making much better use of their
lavishly built squad and a rather generous Champions League group saw easy
progress and plenty of goals. City put 5 past CSKA Moscow and 4 past Viktoria
Plzen, while they did get on the scoresheet against a dominant Bayern Munich in
the group stages here.
In the Premier League, with nearly 20 goals more scored than
their nearest rivals their story is the same, especially at Eastlands, and one
has to give them a huge amount of respect even playing Barcelona, who aren’t
favourites at this stage for the first time since 2004.
Manchester City have been failed to beat any major team that
has come to the Etihad in Europe – they came away without a win in a group
containing Borussia Dortmund and Real Madrid last year while even Ajax left the
Etihad with a point last year – and despite a 3-2 win at Bayern Munich in this
season’s competition were embarrassed for 70 minutes by the Champions at the
Ethiad.
However, Barcelona’s own away woes make this a tremendously
difficult choice to make. In the last 7 seasons Barcelona have reached 7
semi-finals and gone onto win the competition twice, and in their Last 16 away
tie they have won just twice – one of those being against Celtic all the way
back in 2007/08, while Bayer Leverkusen were soundly beaten 3-1 but were easily
the weakest challenge they’d faced on paper in the last 16 since their famed
run of success in the completion started in 2006. Elsewhere, they’ve been held
1-1 by Lyon, 1-1 by Stuttgart, and beaten 2-1 by Arsenal (where they also got
pulled back to a 2-2 draw in their quarter final before winning 4-1 at home).
Barcelona won all those second legs easily but the main point is that at
European level, the only vulnerability they’ve shown in the knockout stages has
been on the road, regardless of the supposed quality of the opposition –
overall they have won three of 15 road games.
With such uncertainty surrounding both sides, it’s tempting
to go for goals here but a tight City approach might bring the draw into play
at 5/2.
Advice
1 pt Draw (5/2 general)
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