Fitter, fresher City ready to lock horns with Barcelona now

There are no more starry eyes at Manchester City about reaching the Champions League knockout stage and facing Barcelona.

As Samir Nasri characterises it, this was City 12 months ago: a bunch of inexperienced novices caught in the glare of the spotlight shone on the last 16, when they played the four-time European Cup-winners.

The tie was lost 4-1, City falling 2-0 at the Etihad Stadium in an opening leg that was effectively over when Martin Demichelis was sent off for fouling Lionel Messi after 53 minutes and the Argentinean scored the resulting penalty to give his side the lead.

Streetwise air

But there is a new streetwise air at City as they welcome Luis Enrique’s side at the same stage of the competition. For

Manuel Pellegrini

and his team here is the perfect chance to avenge last season’s defeat.

A prime illustration of what Nasri meant when saying City had "respected them too much" came in Pellegrini's odd decision to play Aleksandar Kolarov ahead of Gaël Clichy to offer more protection in midfield at the Etihad last year.

Here was a tactic that went against the Chilean’s mantra that City always play the same way: attack, attack and more attack. The ploy backfired as Kolarov proved ineffective and was replaced after 57 minutes.

When this was put to Pellegrini he initially denied the charge. “I don’t think that just last year we changed our style, maybe we couldn’t do what we tried to do,” he said, before admitting that, actually, strategy was tinkered with. “We’d played 19 games in two months so we tried to play with our style another way. We were happy with the way we played in that game, we didn’t just defend.”

Pellegrini pointed to how this term City should be far fresher as there has been less game time in the run-up to taking on Barcelona. Four fewer matches, in fact, having played 36 to the 40 of last season’s corresponding point.

“Last year was different, last year we arrived at this stage of the Champions League after playing 19 games in two months, I don’t think that was our best moment,” he said. “But I hope this year we will do it because we are not playing so many games.”

City are indeed returning to prime form after a wobbly January when their sole league win was on New Year’s Day and they were also eliminated from the FA Cup by Middlesbrough. Stoke City have been put away 4-1 and Newcastle United 5-0 in City’s last two outings.

Factor in Sergio Agüero being available this time – injury meant he played only 45 minutes of last year’s tie, the second leg’s opening half – and there is further reason for Pellegrini to believe City are now a different proposition.

Top five in world

Of Agüero, the manager said: “It’s very important of course – I think that Sergio Agüero is one of the five top players in the world. When he’s 100 per cent fit it’s very difficult to stop him. Last season he couldn’t play in the way he would like to do it, it was the same as the team.

“This year I think Sergio arrives in a good moment, he’s coming back from a long injury but you’ve seen in the last two games against Stoke and Newcastle that he’s again at his best performance.”

As James Milner is now "100 per cent" fit after a knee injury the only cloud for Pellegrini is that Yaya Touré is suspended for the encounter.

Barcelona, surprisingly, lost 1-0 to Málaga at Camp Nou on Saturday. Yet Pellegrini is not taking too much notice. He said: “Before the last game they won 11 games in a row so I don’t think that he [Enrique] has a lot of criticism at this moment.

“When we were drawn against them in December they were not in a good moment but on Tuesday we’ll see the real Barcelona. Before that [Malaga game] I think they were playing very well and I expect to face that Barcelona. I’m not their manager, it’s always important for me to try and go into these games and win the game but also win the previous one [as City did against Newcastle].

“Having scored five goals at home is going to give us big confidence for taking on a team like Barcelona.”

The key, as always, is to remain in the tie ahead of the second leg. City’s new bullishness augurs well. Guardian Service