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Manchester City Fan View: Champions League performances will set tone for the end of the season
Manchester City and Liverpool will face each other in the Champions League quarter-final in what will be one of the most anticipated matches of the season. For City, the two-legged tie could set the tone for the rest of the campaign.
In English competition, the Blues fate has already been sealed. The League Cup has been won, the FA Cup has gone and the Premier League has been a formality since December. There are still plenty of records to play for, as well as the tantalising possibility of winning the title against Manchester United on April 7th.
Whilst we don’t know for certain the exact date the title will be sealed, or whether City will achieve an all-time points and or goals record, we know they’ll win the league. The only real area of uncertainty remains in the Champions League.
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The quarter final of Europe’s premier club competition pits Pep Guardiola against Jürgen Klopp again. Klopp has the best record against Guardiola out of all the managers he’s faced. To date, the Reds are the only team to have beaten City in the league this season. Domestically, they make illustrious company with Wigan, who somehow knocked City out of the FA Cup and are the only other side in the country to have registered a victory over Pep’s men.
Liverpool’s 4-3 win came at Anfield in January. City were not at their best but they also were not awful, but 10 minutes where they lost their composure and made a raft of individual mistakes cost them on the day. For all that Liverpool will look to that result for confidence, will the Blues really have the same problems again?
With the end of the season fast approaching, this tie could dictate the mood around the Etihad for the rest of the season. The two-legged affair falls either side of the Manchester derby, and precedes a trip to Wembley to face Tottenham Hotspur.
In a span of just 10 days, that’s a run of Liverpool-Manchester United-Liverpool-Tottenham. If it went wrong – because let’s not forget that it could – we could be missing a once in a lifetime chance to win the title in the Manchester derby. We could then bow out of the Champions League, meaning that winning the league after it could feel a little less exciting than it should.
Nothing will take the season’s achievements away, but a Champions League exit to Liverpool would take the shine off the run in.
However, that’s a worst case scenario and nothing about City’s season suggests there’s any reason to worry about that. Instead, they have a chance to add a fresh momentum to their campaign.
If they were to beat United and seal the title against them, the Etihad would be bouncing like never before. With the second leg of the Liverpool tie at the Etihad just four days later, the atmosphere will be electric. With progression to the semi-finals still likely to be in the balance, that energy in the stands would be momentous. Win it, and you’d be looking at four of the most enjoyable days the club has ever had. It would be followed up that weekend by receiving a guard of honour at Wembley from the Tottenham team.
The Liverpool tie will be huge. Lose it and it will case a shadow over the end of the season. But if City win it, it will set them up for the most greatest end to a season they’ve ever had.
