CSKA Moscow vs. Manchester City: Key Issues Set to Shape Champions League Game
Manchester City supporters will pay rapt attention to the Sky Blues' second journey in two years to play CSKA Moscow in a Champions League group-stage fixture.
The club's backers will want to know which City side will show up to the Arena Khimki.
Will it be the fast, aggressive and terrifying unit that put yet another ruthless whipping on Tottenham Hotspur this past weekend?
Or will it be the timid, afraid-to-lose bunch that unsuccessfully played to draw away to Bayern Munich and were fortunate to salvage a point from AS Roma at the Etihad?
For the sake of all City supporters, Manuel Pellegrini's side need to play their best Champions League football of this season in this match. Not that that is such a hard threshold to cross.
Mama There Goes That Man
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Sergio Aguero only needed two goals against Tottenham Hotspur this past Saturday to pass Carlos Tevez as Manchester City's all-time leading Premier League goalscorer.
He had them in 20 minutes, then he potted two more. Andy Hampson of the Press Association (via the Daily Mail) wrote of Aguero:
"Prior to the game (Mauricio) Pochettino had equated Aguero's play to the musical genius of Mozart, and his subsequent display reignited debate over where the forward ranks among the world's elite. Comparisons with Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo were commonplace a year ago before a sequence of muscle injuries ravaged the second part of his 2013-14 campaign and his World Cup.
"
Pellegrini has told reporters before that he wants Aguero to "fight for the Ballon d'Or," and now he believes that Aguero is in that discussion.
"I'm not talking because he scored four goals (against Tottenham)," Pellegrini explained, according to the Agence France-Presse (h/t FIFA.com). "I know his career in Argentina, Spain and here in England and that's why I said he's one of the most important strikers in the world."
City are taking one of the five or six best players in the world right now to Moscow for this match. If Aguero does not score in this one, it would have to be considered a surprise.
Voices Carry
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City will face CSKA Moscow in front of thousands of empty seats.
"Manchester City's Champions League game with CSKA Moscow on October 21 will be played behind closed doors," observed David McDonnell in the Mirror. "UEFA has imposed the punishment on the Russian champions for their failure to control their fans in their 5-1 defeat to Roma, as well as 'racist behaviour of supporters.'"
It is so disappointing when some bad apples spoil the barrel for the good ones.
UEFA needs to put CSKA Moscow on a very short leash. The Russian club had this very problem last year with reference to City midfielder Yaya Toure. If CSKA Moscow cannot fix this problem now, UEFA needs to do what it can to disqualify the club from the tournament until they can.
Empty stadiums also represent lost revenue. They diminish the competition and deprive football fans (the deserving ones, anyway) from seeing the game played at the highest level.
What a disgrace.
Martin Demichelis Is Still Slow
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Eliaquim Mangala is probably going to be ready to face CSKA Moscow. That is a really good thing because City fans have seen enough of Martin Demichelis in Champions League matches to last them a lifetime.
"We just have a small problem with Mangala. He has a small muscle injury but I think he will be fit for Tuesday and able to play without a problem," Pellegrini said per David McDonnell in the Mirror.
Any questions Pellegrini might have had about putting Mangala out against CSKA Moscow may have been answered by Demichelis' display against Spurs over the weekend.
"Spurs were awarded the game's third penalty when Martin Demichelis was adjudged to have fouled (Christian) Eriksen," noted Goal.com. The Argentine defender was bailed out when Joe Hart saved Roberto Soldado's insufficient spot kick.
Demichelis is fine for cup competitions and the occasional appearance against teams in the bottom half of the Premier League table. But he cannot hold up against elite opponents, and he has no place in a Champions League XI for City.
Backs to the Wall Already?
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City earned just one point from their first two matches in Champions League Group E. City's next two matches in this group stage are with CSKA Moscow, and it is not an overstatement to say that City need to take six points from these two matches or else get ready for some Europa League football.
CSKA Moscow were hammered by AS Roma in Italy in their Group E opener, then suffered a narrow 1-0 defeat in Moscow to Bayern Munich. The Russian side will be desperate, but then as noted before they will have almost no home-based advantage because the match will be played behind closed doors.
While City are doing the two-step with CSKA Moscow, Roma and Bayern will presumably be beating each others' brains in during their home-and-home matches.
If City do secure six points from their two matches with CSKA Moscow, almost any permutation of results from the Bayern/Roma matches will help City. If City come away with anything less than four points, the results of those matches may be academic to City.
City Will Be Even Further Short-Handed Against CSKA Moscow
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When City were punished by UEFA for Financial Fair Play violations, Pellegrini knew that the biggest issue would be the squad restriction in Champions League play. He even admitted that the decision to sell Alvaro Negredo was motivated almost entirely by that restriction.
Pellegrini also knew that City could have real problems in Champions League play if a 21-man squad was further diminished by injuries. So it was known, so it has come to pass.
City are fortunate that their most crucial players (Aguero, David Silva, Yaya Toure, Vincent Kompany and others) are fit for this match. But Samir Nasri has been out for a few weeks and now Frank Lampard is on the shelf.
"Lampard will miss Manchester City's Champions League game against CSKA Moscow because of a thigh injury," reported Richard Jolly for ESPN FC.
"The 36-year-old, who scored in the 2008 Champions League final in Moscow, has been sent for scans after he was stretchered off in the first half of City's 4-1 win over Tottenham on Saturday," continued Jolly.
On the one hand, the absences of Nasri and Lampard will make Pellegrini's team sheet that much easier to fill out. When you only have 19 players available, whittling out an XI is not really that tough.
But if City ever trail in this match, or if they are being held by CSKA Moscow to an inconvenient and potentially fatal draw, Pellegrini would surely like to have Nasri or Lampard to inject into City's attack.
