Man City Must Finally IGNITE the Champions League with Big Performance against Juventus

When oh when will City finally actually show up in the Champions League? For a club with immense amounts of cheddar, they have criminally underachieved so badly in the elite competition. I would put most of that blame on the Chilean engineer whose tactics have not been varied enough to match up against non-Premiership teams.


So far, after several appearances, City's greatest achievement was going to Rome and beating Roma to qualify for the next round. I thought they'd get beat and didn't give them much of a hope of getting through. Then they were knocked back down earth and got that ass well and truly spanked by the Catalan machine. I would have liked them to put up a better fight and at least try and make the matches more competitive, but there was nothing stopping that Barca train. They were always going to rampage any team with that trio.

The group they've been put in is actually not as difficult as people may think. Starting with tonight's game, this is a match that will be close but I expect City to win. If this was last year then yes, it would be another headache for City to try and get through the group that also includes Sevilla. It's 2015, and Tevez has morphed into Mandzukic and Juve have already lost two matches in the Serie A....one of them in their own stadium. Ergo...they are there to be beaten just as long as City play their game and their key players show up to drive that stake through the Italian heart. That means Yaya Toure getting the ball and driving forward with Silva threading balls through and weaving past the congestion of the central area of the pitch. These are the two players that get City going and have been the instruments of destruction in the Premier League so far. If they are both on the game, Juventus will find it hard to contain that attacking dual force.


Pellegrini came out and even said Man City cannot be called a great team until they win the Champions League. That will always be the mark of greatness for club teams. It's the best of the best, and to be considered the top dog...you've got to win the biggest prize. For a squad as talented as City who have gotten even more powerful, the only thing I will accept is at LEAST a semi-final birth. I expect the three usual suspects of Barcelona, Bayern and Madrid to be there, but that fourth spot really ought to be City. Without Aguero, it will be harder. Bony has not hit the ground at all, Kelechi can't play and that leaves Pellegrini with no other strikers since the others were offloaded to Italy. As good as De Bruyne and Sterling may be, they are no way near as lethal in front of goal as Kun. Pellegrini NEEDS him if City want to go deep in the Champions League.








It begins tonight. A win and a great performance, and perhaps that will lay down a marker and set things in motion for them to top the group, and push ahead to the quarters. The worst that could happen is a bad beating with a Juve team that is low on confidence. Then that could set the City mindset back to previous seasons of underachievement and no real belief that they can put the Premier League back on the map after the embarrassment of last season.