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Manchester City won the first leg of their Champions League round of 16 clash versus Sporting convincingly. They scored five unanswered goals and looked poised to finish the job in the first leg. They have done so, but the second leg might still be influential in terms of how the Citizens set up going forward. Their sizeable lead in the English Premier League melted to just six in front of Liverpool, who has one less game played, and they still have not won the Champions League, a dream for their owners ever since they took the club over in 2008. As the return leg is nearing, here are two bold Manchester City predictions for their Champions League clash vs Sporting.
Manchester City-Sporting predictions
Riyad Mahrez will dominate again
Recently, Pep Guardiola came to the press and said that Manchester City really needs a striker. They have been heavily linked with Harry Kane in the summer and, now, with Erling Haaland, who looks poised to leave Borussia Dortmund at the end of this season. However, this year has not been that difficult for City in terms of scoring the goals. They scored the second-most goals in the Premier League, behind the incredible Liverpool attack, and scored 23 goals in the Champions League, tied with Bayern Munich as the best goal-scoring team in the competition. They have done so through a balanced attack mostly, but one player stood out.
In totality, Manchester City has been relying on their attacking threats that are not directly strikers to score the goals. Thus, Raheem Sterling has 13 in all competitions, Phil Foden and Bernardo Silva have ten, while Kevin De Bruyne added eight. However, the player that stood out is Riyad Mahrez. The Algerian winger who joined the Citizens in 2018 from the title-winning Leicester City team has had some struggles early, playing mostly from the bench. This season, he has been absolutely dominant and should look to continue that form in the return leg of this competition.
Overall, he scored 19 goals this season, with six coming in the Champions League. One of these six goals came in the 7th minute of the first game in Lisbon, when he used a confused Sporting team appealing for offside to easily put the ball in the back of the net. While this is a strange goal indeed, most of his goals this season came from his brilliant effort on the right flank, where he starts most games. As mentioned above, Manchester City does not really have a striker, apart from Gabriel Jesus who has six goals in 27 appearances. Thus, they need their wingers to use the space on the flanks to create chances and really punish defenses who do not overload on their sides, giving them the space, to begin with.
While it is formidable what others have done, most notably Sterling, it is Mahrez that really stands out. He has been deployed on his favorite right flank for the entire season and really managed to attack the space behind the defenders, which are mostly drawn to the middle by the interlinking play of their superstar midfield. With Bernardo Silva playing the number nine role as he has done for most of the season, center-backs usually follow him in the middle and leave the fullbacks on an island with Manchester City's wingers. That space and that island will be there again when they play their return leg versus Sporting and Mahrez will once again use it to the best of his abilities.
The new John Stones-Aymeric Laporte partnership will have a good start in Europe
Manchester City has recently been hit with devastating news. Their superstar center-back Ruben Dias was injured in their FA Cup game versus Peterborough and will not feature for four to six weeks. That is a major blow for the Citizens, as he will miss the upcoming Manchester Derby, their return leg versus Sporting, and likely their quarterfinals matchup, or at least one leg of that matchup. It should not be a problem for the second leg versus Sporting, but it might spell trouble depending on the draw. In terms of the new partnership, it will be Stones and Laporte taking the field on Wednesday night.
In a twist of events, after last season ended with the Dias-Stones partnership, Laporte has regained his place in the middle of the Manchester City defense together with the Portuguese superstar. Stones, on the other hand, played just nine games this season in the Premier League this season and sixteen overall. Interestingly enough, even Nathan Ake played two more games than him. So, it will be quite a risk for City, but they should not have too much trouble. Sporting Lisbon scored just 14 goals in the group stage, eight of them coming against the overmatched Besiktas team. Thus, especially after the clean sheet in the first leg, there should be no problems for the new partnership.
Obviously, it will not be ideal. Manchester City's defense relies on Ruben Dias to be the best they can be. With the Portuguese player running their backline, City have been amazing. According to Footy Stats, Dias conceded just 15 goals in 25 games in the Premier League, with 14 clean sheets to his name. That will be hard to mimic, even for the amazing talents that are both Stones and Laporte. However, with the attacking football of Manchester City and their midfield domination, there will ultimately be no problems.
