Manchester City v Dinamo Zagreb : Match Preview

Manchester City face Dinamo Zagreb at the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday evening in their first home game of the new Champions League campaign.

All the latest news on Manchester City can be found on Football Addict.

In recent years Manchester City have had a knack of being drawn against the surprise form team in the tournament – think Monaco, Napoli or even Lyon. On the basis of the first group game perhaps Zagreb could be that team this season.

Despite edging into the Champions League group stages via the play off rounds, they dismissed Atalanta by 4-0 in the first match week. To put this into context, Atalanta finished 3rd last season in a strong Italian League.

Zagreb have played 9 games so far in their League and have won 6 of them, drawing 1 and losing two by 1 goal margins. They tend to line up in a 4-3-3 or 4-4-1-1 attacking formation and are quick and incisive on the break.

More from Man City Square

The majority of their goals are distributed amongst their midfielders who are also notching up assists – Amer Gojak and Lovro Majer seem to be providing most of the assists. The centre forward, Bruno Petkovic, seems to be holding and linking play, bringing the speedy midfield into the attack.

Indeed they would appear to be capable of catching our City team out on the break and we will need to be at our best to put this team to bed. The difficulty for City may be the expected rotation of the players.

Guardiola is already contending with some pressures in the centre of defence caused by injury and will probably be hoping to play both Nicolas Otamendi and Fernandinho together in this game, hoping they will also feature in the Wolves game on Sunday. Rotation may be a feature for the full backs though and I would expect Benjamin Mendy and Joao Cancelo to both start the game.

The midfield presents some options, but given Kevin De Bruyne is unlikely to feature – he picked up a slight injury in the game against Everton – Guardiola may well be scratching his head. David Silva played against Everton and would normally be expected to rest for this following game, but he may not get that luxury – unless Pep chooses youngster Phil Foden instead.

I expect the midfield will be Rodrigo as the defensive midfielder with Ilkay Gundogan and David Silva alongside. The lack of De Bruyne will make this game harder to win, but we know enough from last season to realise it is not impossible.

The attack will probably pick itself based on form – so Raheem Sterling and Riyad Mahrez will likely start either side of Sergio Aguero. I would really like to see Gabriel Jesus and Sergio Aguero playing together but I do not believe it will happen in this game.

Of special note here may be the weather. The torrential rain in Manchester will make this pitch exceptionally fast but accuracy and control could be difficult. May be a game for Sterling to shine.

Next. . dark

Predicted Manchester City Starting XI

Ederson

Cancelo, Otamendi, Fernandinho, Mendy

Rodrigo, Gundogan, Silva

Sterling, Aguero, Mahrez

Home/Man City News