Can Manchester City Finally Take Their Premier League Dominance into Europe?

At the start of Manchester City’s Champions League campaign last year their manager Manuel Pellegrini proudly declared that the club would soon become European champions for the first time in their history. 

“I am absolutely sure that Manchester City will eventually win the Champions League,” he boastfully told The Daily Mirror.

As manager of the reigning Premier League champions with a squad worth an estimated £300 million Pellegrini is duty bound to make these bold predictions, nothing less is expected of him, but the pertinent and crucial question is when would this finally happen?

By the start of November it appeared as though it wouldn’t be this season after City had taken just two points from their first four games in their Champions League group, and suffered defeats away to Bayern Munich, and more worryingly at home against the modest obstacle of CSKA Moscow.

It seemed that City would fail to get out of the group stages for the third time in their four appearances in the Champions League.

They had emerged from the group stage only once before, but immediately lost to Barcelona in the round of 16 last season.

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In their first four group games this season City had been timid and hesitant, unable to replicate the flair and expansive football that had seen them win their second Premier League title in three years last season.

At the end of November, City faced the might and superstar cast of Bayern Munich, the 2013 Champions League winners, at the Etihad stadium knowing they realistically had to win to survive in the tournament.

Such high stakes would lure out the best in City and inspire them to an impressive 3-2 win over the German champions.

Yes, Bayern were reduced to 10 men when Medhi Benatia was sent off in the first half, but this did not stop them taking a 2-1 lead, which they would hold on to for most of the game before Sergio Aguero scored twice in the final five minutes to secure a famous win.

This was both a totemic and cathartic result for City in the Champions League, which for the first time filled them with the confidence they could now overcome the very best in Europe.

This was proved again just two weeks later when they earned their passage to the knockout rounds with a confident 2-0 victory against Roma inside the Stadio Olimpico.

The Bayern win was no fluke for they took apart the second-best side in Italy with patient and fluid football, and the fact they did it without the three usual pillars of their team, Vincent Kompany, Yaya Toure and Aguero imbued their with further confidence.

Now City face Barcelona once again in the first leg of the round of 16 on Tuesday night at the Etihad stadium as a team reborn in Europe with a different attitude.

As Pellegrini succinctly told the Daily Mirror this weekend, “If we can beat Bayern Munich then we can also beat Barcelona.”

Manchester City always had the players, now they also have the belief.

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They have momentum too having beaten Newcastle United 5-0 on Saturday afternoon after dismantling Stoke City 4-1 in their previous Premier League game two weeks ago.

They will be fresher as well, having played less games in the last two months compared to when they faced Barcelona at the same stage of the Champions League last season.

This time last year they had played 15 games in the two months leading up to the tie, but this year they have played three less.

“What I think it is important for our team is that we are not arriving at these games having played as many games as last season,” Pellegrini told The Independent. “[Last season we] were really tired by the time we met Barcelona. This time we are arriving at the game not having so many games as last season and that could be important.”

Manchester City are at their best in Europe when they attack teams, when they put the ball at risk and trust their players.

This approach has brought them success in the Premier League, and so to ditch this and simply try to contain other teams will only deliver more disappointment.

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City have a wealth of attacking players, capable of penetrating the best defences, and if Pellegrini allows his team to play with the same flair and invention they showed against Bayern Munich and Roma late last year, they have a real chance of navigating their way past Barcelona over two legs.

If you sit back and try to stop Lionel Messi, Neymar and Luis Suarez, you are simply waiting for the inevitable.

City will be deprived of Toure, who is serving a ban, in the first leg this week, but have enough muscle and flair to compensate for his absence with Aguero, Edin Dzeko, Samir Nasri, Fernandinho, Jesus Navas, new signing Wilfried Bony, and the focus of most of their invention David Silva.

As an admiring Sergio Busquets told The Guardian, “They’re creative and dangerous, especially when the ball reaches [David] Silva. He’s the player, with freedom of movement and his final ball.”

This collection of City players will face Barcelona on Tuesday night bolstered by their recent form, freshness and new belief, and as their captain Vincent Kompany told The Independent at the weekend, “if we are not well prepared now, then we never will be.”