Is Manchester City Ready To Win The UCL?

Adding Manchester City’s enthralling 5-3 victory over Monaco to the emphatic demolition of Barcelona last November makes it tempting to ask whether City are beginning, at long last, to hit their stride in the Champions League. The gradual, year-on-year improvement sought by the club’s owners in Abu Dhabi is clearly occurring. Not initially apparent, owing to three campaigns of false starts, the line ever since has been on the gradual climb.

From the initial stuttering start to life with the big boys, when City failed to make headway from groups that contained the likes of Bayern Munich (three times), Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund, City finally escaped the group phases for the first time three seasons ago.

Immediately, they were once again saddled with near-impossible draws, being paired with Barcelona two years consecutively in the round of 16. Inevitably, on each occasion the newcomers pulled up short against European aristocracy of such proven calibre.

Last season saw City break loose. Despite once again being in a punishing group with Juventus, Sevilla and Borussia Monchengladbach, City qualified for the knockout rounds for the third consecutive season. In beating Dynamo Kiev and Paris Saint-Germain in the subsequent rounds, City made their way for the first time ever to the semifinal stage of the competition. In a tournament that usually throws up a final four of Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern and one other, City had infiltrated as far as could have been considered possible.

In a disappointingly fearful display against Real Madrid over two legs, the club bowed out last time around, its ambitious effort slightly tarnished by Manuel Pellegrini’s unwillingness to do just what Pep Guardiola did against Monaco: go for the jugular. However, the signs are that at last City feel at home in their surroundings. Certainly, given what has been dished up recently, there seems little prospect of the timid displays of last season being repeated, if they do climb high again in this season’s tournament.

With the fans’ disapproval of UEFA still audible but not as vitriolic as two years ago, when financial fair play and the shabby handling of the away fixture in Moscow against CSKA greatly angered many followers, it is perhaps as good a moment as ever for Guardiola to focus minds on what can still be achieved in 2016-17.

If City’s relationship with the competition still remains a little stiff and formal, the evidence is beginning to suggest the mantle of meaningful challenger is becoming a comfortable fit rather than the horse-hair jacket of recent times.

Despite the carnage of Tuesday, Guardiola was happy to label the match “beautiful”, while counterpart Leonardo Jardim was impressed enough by his side’s showing in Manchester that he congratulated his team on their display, despite ending with what can only be described as a heavy defeat. His side had just conceded five goals and finished with a shambolic lack of shape, yet the Portuguese was purring. If this is how opposing managers treat conceding five goals to City, then there is evidence things are looking up.

However, City’s defensive shambles in this match was clearly a major stumbling block, with both centre-halves, Nicolas Otamendi and John Stones, enjoying periods of slapstick inelegance. At full-back, the chameleon skills of Fernandinho were no match for the nippy Monaco forwards and it was not until Pablo Zabaleta appeared that things began to take shape.

Unless Vincent Kompany’s long litany of disastrous injuries comes to a welcome and unexpected stop, there is little City can do to address defensive problems this season, bar carrying on regardless. There is a line of argument that suggests the emphasis on sumptuous attacking play — where David Silva prompting Leroy Sane, Raheem Sterling and Sergio Aguero could take apart any team on the planet — might just be the necessary counterbalance to the potential disasters at the other end.

Overloaded with attacking riches, undermanned in defensive midfield and utterly exposed at the back, can City make this risky game plan work in a season of surprises in the Champions League? With Barcelona on their way out, one of those semifinal regulars will be missing this year, which means another place up for grabs among the wider group of hopefuls just below their level.

Guardiola was hired to nurture development in this competition. The coach, who won the trophy twice with Barcelona, will be hoping to do it again after failing to do so with Bayern. In beating Monaco, a team ahead of Barcelona’s tormentors PSG in Ligue 1, City have opened up intriguing possibilities.

For a club that returned to European competition after a 25-year hiatus by being drawn to play in Wales (against Total Network Solutions in 2003), the prospect of reaching their first ever Champions League final and having to play it in the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff would also appeal to the sense of humour imbued in its long-suffering supporters.

A similarly chaotic second-leg triumph in Monaco will have people believing that odd irony might just be possible.