Real Madrid face Manchester City in the first leg of the Champions League semi-final on Tuesday at the Etihad Stadium. Football Espana spoke with Alex Brotherton of the Manchester Evening News to get the inside track on the Premier League leaders.
Which player should Real Madrid worry about the most?
Of course City have plenty of quality attacking players – Phil Foden for example played a crucial role in both legs of the quarter-final against Atletico Madrid – but for his current form Real Madrid should be most worried about Kevin de Bruyne.
The Belgian endured a slow start to the season, and for a time City actually played better without him in the midfield. But since the turn of the year he has been immense; he’s been directly involved in 15 goals in his last 11 appearances at home (nine goals and six assists), and has developed a knack of scoring important goals in big games (vs Chelsea, Liverpool and Atletico for example). With Casemiro potentially unavailable, Real Madrid could struggle to contain his surging runs forward.
How are Manchester City playing at the moment?
Saturday’s 5-1 thrashing of Watford aside, City have not been at their free-flowing attacking best of late. That’s partly been conditioned by the number of compact, deep-lying defences they’ve come up against and the patient approach it takes to break them down, but there’s clearly been a dip since December.
That isn’t to say that results have been disastrous – one defeat at two draws was all it took for City’s Premier League advantage over Liverpool to shrink a point – and there have been excellent performances against Liverpool in the league and Sporting in the Champions League. That said, the eleven-day period in which City faced Liverpool and Atletico twice each has clearly taken a toll, both in terms of injuries and fatigue.
What will Manchester City’s starting lineup look like?
The starting line-up is harder to predict than usual, given the defensive crisis Guardiola is faced with. Kyle Walker is unlikely to feature after twisting his ankle against Atletico two weeks ago, while usual right-back replacement Joao Cancelo is suspended for the first leg. John Stones faces a late fitness test for a muscular issue, meaning that Pep could be forced to either play Ruben Dias on the right or change to a system using wing-backs.
If Stones is out and Dias plays on the right, Nathan Ake will play alongside Aymeric Laporte at centre-back with Oleksandr Zinchenko at left-back. Kevin de Bruyne, Bernardo Silva and Rodri are nailed-on starters in midfield, and after being rested on Saturday it seems likely that Phil Foden will start either on the left wing or at false nine. Riyad Mahrez is likely to start on the right.
What’s the final result of the tie going to be?
I think that City will win on Tuesday, but it will be extremely tough to stop Karim Benzema from scoring. Playing the crucial second leg at a hostile Santiago Bernabeu will test City’s nerve, but against Atletico at the Wanda Metropolitano they showed that they know how to suffer. I’ll go with 2-1 City at the Etihad and a 2-2 draw at the Bernabeu. City to win 4-3 on aggregate.
