CL R16: Barcelona FC vs Manchester City

Art Morte wrote:True dat. Why?

He has a history of turning up when playing against Barca and creating "surprise" results, especially at the Calderon.

Was awful last year though. His most memorable moment was getting the ball taken away by Messi.

How fast time changes! Few months back it looked like it would be an even tie!

Now that Messi usually starts game from the right wing and Dani Alves who is playing for a new contract is looking like a beast once more, this looks like a very intimidating right wing attack. Who of City going to stop all those attacks? Clichy? Kolarov?

Calma. Agüero got this.

Also: reported.

junkyard wrote:Now that Messi usually starts game from the right wing and Dani Alves who is playing for a new contract is looking like a beast once more, this looks like a very intimidating right wing attack. Who of City going to stop all those attacks? Clichy? Kolarov?

Fußball wrote:Calma. Agüero got this.

Also: reported.

junkyard wrote:Now that Messi usually starts game from the right wing and Dani Alves who is playing for a new contract is looking like a beast once more, this looks like a very intimidating right wing attack. Who of City going to stop all those attacks? Clichy? Kolarov?

Come on, fussball! Don't pretend that Dani is now playing shit!

Anyway, is Kun fit enough?

Aguero will most probably be playing but not sure whether he will be in the beast mode just as he was before the injury. I will not be surprised if he struggles vs us. So lets hype us for this game.

Few of my predictions for the first leg :

1. Messi and Neymar to continue their love relationship (scoring in the same match).
2. Ter Stegen to enetertain neutral fans through a blunder
3. Suarez to continue missing sitters and eventually get subbed by Pedro
4. Alves back to his previous form (over the country crosses)
5. Mashcherano as usual beasting in the defense.
6. Rakitic to prove that he is better than Cesc at least in the second half of the season...

Score ending in 2-1 for us.

Barca goes through unless Man city turn into Chelsea 12 .

Barca goes through unless Man city turn into Chelsea 12 .

They can't, City as a team are too stupid tactically to cause problems. That's their biggest problem they don't possess enough tactical nouse to cause the elite problems.

Even Arsenal are better than them in this regard.

halamadrid2 wrote:If Pelle gets his tactics right City can definitely beat Barca. One of those tactic choices would be using a midfield 5, no point try to match Barca in numbers you need to beat them in the midfield to reduce their ability to float the ball around this will force Messi to go deeper and deeper until eventually being completely nullified. Another choice would be to bench Toure. You need hardwokers not slow snails like him

Play this line up and we are talking

Cabarello
Zabaleta-Kompany-Demichelis-Kolarov
Navas-Fernando-Fernandinho-Milner
Silva
Kun

RJ: but of course Barca will completely steamroll this sorry arse team. They are going to wish they had forfeited the game instead

I really like your idea of benching Toure. But you know should this happen English media and pundits are going to call it a blasphemy.

Draw at Etihad, convincing Barca win at Camp Nou.

city is still oddly built to have a great impact in europe, especially against the best teams.

They have lacked in quality Widemen for years and they never addressed it. Milner and Navas wide? vs Barca? loooool


They can flood the middle with, toure, fernadinho and fernando, but that doesn't leave much forward with kun, silva and whoever... and they can just leave toure alone with fernando/fernandinho, midfield wont cope...

meh team for europe still

Milner has been pretty darn good this season tbh... i like him.

It's not really about individual ability, they just don't have the smarts to cause problems at this level.

Barcelona atm are on another level. Messi has addressed the tactical issues Barca had few months ago and with Suarez adjusting to his tactics and accepting the beta role, Barcelona have finally managed to establish the front three that was lacking since prime villa-messi-pedro.

Still question marks on defence but as long as Messi dominates, they can make Djimi-Eboue CB partnership into prime Gallas-Vermaelen.

City have a lot of issues in their team. Aguero is the only big game player they have but he can't do it by himself. They can resort to Mourinho tactics but their defenders are pretty stupid to pull that without conceding.

Barca win home and away.

Lol as if that Bayern game meant anything lol, they had already qualified in the meaningless group stage.

People said the same last year, Barca are just too tactically aware and experienced. There's not a chance in hell of it happening I'm sorry but there isn't.

If this was Chelsea because they know how to play these games fair enough but City? Nope.

Pep's Bayern have had some suspects results in europe in the past two years, i don't see how they are a barometer for anything. Barca are stronger than them as far as I'm concerned. Besides, they don't have Alonso, or Boating like players committing dumb mistakes one after the other like bayern.

No they didn't lol, they won because Bayern were already through and could hardly give a shit and quite frankly they did nothing special Boateng just decided to have a stroke mid game lol.

Pique and Mascherano have never done anything close to what Boateng did that game, I'm still very skeptical on Barca as a whole when it comes to teams like Atletico, Real, Bayern, Chelsea etc but City won't cause them problems.

halamadrid2 wrote:No instead Barca have Pique and Marcherano

City changed their tactics against Bayern thus season and played alot better than Bayern.

Milner and Navas will probably nullify and reduce the impact of Neymar and Messi respectively. You force Messi to drop fishing for the ball is a sign that Barca will struggle so we will probably see on the day

What game where you watching?

Bayern outplayed City even when they were down to 10 men. They lost because of Alonsos stupidity and Boatengs brain fart. Bayern were dominating them and pinned them back

What a load of drivel