A preview of the fascinating Barcelona-Manchester City

Barcelona welcome back Pep Guardiola - their favourite and most successful son - to the Camp Nou in the most eagerly awaited game of the Champions League so far this season. Many see it as a match too close to call, a clash of giants between, what are currently, two of the best sides in Europe.

I beg to differ.

To say Pep hit the floor running when he took over at the Etihad doesn’t even begin to describe the quick fire success he enjoyed and the person most surprised by it, I am sure, is Pep himself.

Defeat at Tottenham sandwiched either side of draws at Celtic in the Champions League and at home to Everton in the
Premier League have put things in perspective and instilled a sharp dose of reality and common sense into those people, some of who were actually preposterously suggesting that Pep’s Manchester City side could actually go through the season unbeaten. What nonsense!

No wonder Pep said that defeat at White Hart Lane was in many ways a positive thing and something that they could learn from.

The truth is with Pep at the helm and with everything that is in place at Manchester City, I am convinced that this is a club that will go on to become one of the truly great football outfits. But they aren’t there yet, not by any stretch of the imagination, and they are a still a long way behind his former club now managed by Luis Enrique who they face this Wednesday.

City still have problems at full back, nor are the central defenders playing yet at the level that Guardiola would expect of them. There is an over reliance on Kevin de Bruyne that has seen them struggle when he, either, isn’t available or is just not firing on all cylinders, while Sergio Aguero has not scored for three games which by his prolific standards constitutes a mini-goal drought.

On the subject of Aguero, as impressive a striker as he undoubtedly is, it is impossible to even begin to compare him at the moment, with the phenomenom that is the MSN (Messi, Suarez, Neymar) triumverate reigning supreme at the Camp Nou.

Luis Enrique quite shamelessly organises his entire side to effectively prepare the ground that will permit his front three to win games. It’s as simple as that and who can blame him?

Everyone in the side sacrifices their own game, grafting harder than worker bees in a short-staffed hive, recovering the ball, if possible as high up the pitch as they can, and then feeding the voracious goal scoring appetites of the front three.

The bad news for City is that all three will be available on Wednesday as will Jordi Alba and Sergi Roberto on the flanks, players that are vital to Barcelona in opening up the spaces and linking with any one of the three usual suspects.

Barcelona also have it in their locker to tinker with the system, playing maybe a 3-5-2 or a 4-4-2 with Neymar just behind the main striker but in the big games it will almost certainly be 4-3-3 with every possible piece of space on the pitch used to maximum effect and advantage.

In truth however Luis Enrique does not, in my opinion, work hard enough for Barcelona to have collective answers to situations.

In big games the team have a tendency to occasionally lose control basically they do not have enough alternatives, but, quite simply because of the potency of their strike force, they don’t usually need them.

Meanwhile, we may well indeed see the very best City on occasions this season but what we won’t see on a regular basis is a City as consistent as Guardiola will want it to be.

Guardiola still doesn’t have the squad, nor indeed the starting side that, ideally, he would want.

But he will, because what he does have, which he didn’t have at Bayern Munich, is the full confidence of the board who are already preparing for the arrival of the new players that wil help Guardiola build the type of side to play the type of game that he is looking for.

A Premier League manager told me recently that Pep Guardiola’s teams - including the Barcelona side he coached - have always been very predictable.

It’s an interesting theory and one well worth debating. Indeed, what always know about a Guardiola side is that they are going to attack you. You even know how they are going to attack you. The problem with that though is that when the quality of what you are being attacked with far outweighs anything you might have available to defend yourself with, then prior knowledge becomes as useful as an umbrella in a tornado.

You can try defending deep, being organised both in attack and defence, instilling attitude and heart and then someone like Messi, or Neymar, or Suarez, does something in a nano-second and your hopes and dreams are left withering on the vine.

Pep knows that better than most. This Wednesday night when he calls into his home town with his new side his worst fears could very well be confirmed.