

The Etihad stadium offers the biggest encounter of the fourth round of group stage matches of champions league as the blue half of Manchester goes against the Spanish giants Barcelona. Despite the fact that Manchester city have failed to win any recent encounter, this fixture still promises a lot.

The biggest aspect to this match is that Catalonian giants come as huge favorites along with a lot of confidence and superb form. They won the reverse fixture by 4-0 as Lionel Messi scored a hatrick. So psychologically speaking Barca have a huge advantage. Even the recent form of Barcelona team is staggering as they have won 5 out of their last 6 fixtures losing just one game on the road. On the other hand city gave failed to register a win in their previous 6 games. Form, confidence and momentum everything is in Barcas favor.





We all know that it’s Pep Guardiola who is managing the City side and he knows how to come out of a purple patch. Being under immense pressure of recent form we can see Pep unleash his side some outstanding football at Etihad. An early goal and reduction of defensive errors could lead to a different result than last time. Although Barca played outstanding at Camp Nou but there was some serious horrific defending by City that day.

Pep needs to sort out his tactics as well and needs to play the players at their preferred position; rather than playing Kevin De Bruyne as a striker he must use him as a number 10 or playmaker. He proved to be completely useless playing as a striker.

MSN trio is always a huge factor in any game. Since they started playing together they have been giving some devastating performances throughout. They have literally torn apart almost every team they have faced. The absence of Andres Iniesta is a huge loss for Barca so the player replacing him has a huge duty on his shoulders as he can prove to be the key to all the match. Either Arda turan or Andre Gomes will start on place of Iniesta and either one of them could be the key to the game.

Well for City Aguero needs to be on song for them as he is a big match player and he has proved himself in recent years. He needs to sort out his rumored issue with Pep and let the feet do all the talking. He has the potential to break Barca’s defense. Aguero is a better striker than Suarez statically; if not for injuries he could have given Suarez a real competition. Sterling is another man to look for as he has been reborn under Pep; he needs to be in confidence and play with a cool head as he can create a lot of problems for Barca’s defense. Besides that City’s defense needs to learn from its mistake in the reverse fixture and must maintain in their head that they should not be repeating the mistakes they committed last time. Moreover they need to be more concentrated than last time.

written byEdgar Paerley

