Manchester City vs Liverpool
There are no excuses for Manchester City – the most richly assembled team in world football – going out of the Champions League at the last 16 stage.
At 5-3 up from the first leg, the betting odds favoured them progressing and, while Ligue One leaders Monaco are no mugs, Pep Guardiola’s side should simply be winning football games like that.
So they are now to face Liverpool at the end of a week he said would define City’s season.
Suddenly, the focus on City is largely all on Pep whose team selection in the Stade Louis II was questionable.
Despite a gilded attack, the brittle defence has reappeared far too often this term and City have looked vulnerable.
This wasn’t part of the masterclass the man – deemed by many to be the world’s top coach – was hired for amid great fanfare last summer.
Since guiding Barcelona to the Champions League final in 2011 with arguably the greatest club side there has ever been, there is no denying that Guardiola has regularly underachieved in Europe.
As City became the first team to be knocked out of a Champions League knockout tie after scoring five goals in a first leg, the pressure is now firmly on Guardiola for the first time since he arrived in England.
The leadership and steel have to return quickly against a Liverpool side that, has been lauded for their attacking football and often chastised for their haphazard defending.
That is more understandable, of course, given Liverpool’s outlay has been just a fraction of City’s spend.
Keen managerial rivals in Germany for two seasons, the Jurgen Klopp effect on Liverpool, so far at least, has been more productive than the Pep influence on City.
Things can change quickly in football, but only an FA Cup triumph, coupled with a top-four finish in the English Premier League, can ensure the season is now a successful one for City.
Guardiola deserves respect, but then again so did Manuel Pellegrini – and we all remember what a cup and fourth placed finish did for him last season.
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