Manchester City vs. CSKA Moscow: Issues and Decisions That Will Shape UCL Match
And then there were three.
Manchester City's pursuit of the quadruple last season charged on into March, only to be summarily dashed on the rocks.
When that quest was still alive, Mark Ogden wrote in The Telegraph that "(t)o keep their quadruple hopes alive, City must overcome FA Cup holders Wigan Athletic in next Sunday’s quarter-final before preparing for the more daunting task of overturning a 2-0 first-leg deficit against Barcelona in the Nou Camp in the Champions League round of 16 three days later."
City lost both of those matches.
In the current season, City's quadruple pursuit did not live to see November. Newcastle United guaranteed that some other club will be the new Capital One Cup holders come 2015.
City must now turn their attention to a win-or-else Champions League Group E showdown at the Etihad with CSKA Moscow. Here are a few of the issues and decisions that will shape the match.
CSKA Moscow's Form Does Not Indicate a Great Threat to City
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CSKA Moscow come to the Etihad with their Champions League aspirations seemingly dead even with three Group E matches left to play.
The Russian side's two road matches are City at the Etihad and Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena. They will host AS Roma, but the last time CSKA Moscow played Roma the Russian Premier League side gave up five goals.
CSKA Moscow have but one point to show from their first three Group E encounters, the point they were gifted against City on perhaps the softest penalty call not to involve Arjen Robben in Champions League history.
Things are not going much better for them in the Russian Premier League, either. Since their draw with City, CSKA Moscow have drawn with moribund FC Ufa away and lost to rival Zenit St Petersburg at home.
City should handle the Russian club with some ease, but then again this is Manchester City we are talking about.
City's Penalty Luck Has Not Improved Much Since the CSKA Moscow Fiasco
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City are best advised to win this match with CSKA in open play, because their luck with penalty appeals is running wrong for them at the moment.
Any derby win is a thing to be cherished, but City could easily have had two or even three goals against Manchester United in the recent derby at the Etihad if the match referee had not swallowed his whistle for most of the afternoon.
Noting that United actually threatened to pull level with City late in the match even though they were down to 10 men, The Guardian's Daniel Taylor noted that "City would probably have been coasting by that point if the referee, Michael Oliver, had not turned down three separate penalties, at least two of which could be accurately described as certainties."
City can only continue to pour the ball into the penalty area and try to create chances. Maybe their fortune with penalty shouts will even out.
But they surely should not count on it.
The Derby Win Aside, City's Form Is Not Exactly Sterling at the Moment, Either
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"Pellegrini’s side are already in something of a mini crisis...after throwing away a 2-0 lead over CSKA Moscow in the Champions League and then losing to West Ham and Newcastle in the Premier League and League Cup over the past 12 days," wrote Tom Hopkinson in the Mirror in the run-up to the derby.
Hopkinson predicted that if City manager Manuel Pellegrini could not pull a result from the derby, "the pressure (would) be cranked up considerably." Then again, Hopkinson also forecast "goals galore at either end and a real humdinger of a game." Chris Smalling's red card effectively nullified that prognostication.
Still, a 1-0 victory over a United side that a. linger in the middle of the Premier League table like stale beer after a keg party, and b. played with 10 men for almost an hour, is not exactly the sort of result that turns a season around. City are still very much an enigma at the moment.
City could use a laugher over CSKA Moscow to set them back on course.
City's Eliaquim Mangala Problem Worsens
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With regard to Eliaquim Mangala, City have reached that horrible place clubs reach with certain players where they do not know what to hope for.
City famously dropped £32 million on the Frenchman this summer. Tacitly, City's goal in acquiring Mangala was to obviate the necessity of playing Martin Demichelis in Champions League matches after City's virgin foray into the knockout stage was pretty well ruined by Demichelis' clumsy challenge on Lionel Messi.
So it is pretty ironic, and kind of sad, to see Pellegrini comparing the treatment Mangala is getting in the press with the things that were said about Demichelis last season.
"I remember all the criticism for Martin when he had just arrived in the Premier League and it was the same thing for Vincent [Kompany] when he was playing sometimes with Nastasic, sometimes with Lescott," Pellegrini recently told David Lynch of the Manchester Evening News.
Here's the thing, coach: Demichelis cost about a 10th of what Mangala did and arrived with muted expectations. Mangala, conversely, was supposed to be Kompany's running mate for the next half-decade.
Mangala missed the recent derby with a hip injury. At this point, City are probably better off with Demichelis at centre-back next to Kompany for the CSKA Moscow match than they would be with Mangala even if the younger, faster defender was healthy.
So Mangala's injury, for the time being, might save Pellegrini and City from questions about why they bought Mangala if Demichelis was a better choice for a Champions League match anyway.
3 Things Can Happen, and 2 of Them Are Bad
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American football coach Woody Hayes used to decry the forward pass by saying "three things can happen when you pass, and two of them are bad." Completions are exciting, but incompletions are wasted plays and interceptions are lost possessions.
Along those lines, three things can happen to City in this match with CSKA Moscow, and two of them are bad.
A win against CSKA Moscow would keep City's Champions League Group E destiny in their own hands. Win this one and the next two, and they move on to the knockout phase. For that matter, if Roma lose to Bayern again, City might not even need to beat Bayern to get through.
But a draw or a loss against CSKA Moscow would more or less kill off City's chances of surviving group play.
Per Oddschecker.com, City are a prohibitive favorite to beat CSKA Moscow at 25 online wagering outlets.
For their own sake, City must hope that the touts have this one forecast correctly.
