Manchester City will welcome Portuguese side Sporting Lisbon to the Etihad Stadium this Wednesday for the second leg of their UEFA Champions League knockout stage.
Venue: Etihad Stadium (Manchester)
Key Statistics
Manchester City have won nine of their last ten home games.
The hosts have scored 4+ goals in four of their last seven home games.
City have fallen behind on four separate occasions across their last four home games.
Only two sides have recorded more corners this UCL campaign than City’s average of 7.0 per match (SPO: 3.57).
Sporting Lisbon are on a six-game unbeaten run of away games ahead of this game (W4, D2).
The visitors have not won in England since beating Middlesbrough 3-2 in the 2004/05 season (D2, L5).
Head to head
This is the fourth meeting between both sides in Europe. City have won two of the last three while Sporting have one win.
Latest performances in all competitions
Manchester City: W-W-W-L-W
Sporting: W-L-D-W-L
Man City
Manchester City will look to complete the job they started in Lisbon last month when they welcome Sporting Lisbon to the Etihad this Wednesday.
The ‘Cityzens’ made light work of their opponents in the first leg, winning 5-0 at Lisbon to all but seal their place in the next round. The win was the joint-biggest winning margin in a UCL first-leg away game and means that this second leg is essentially a formality.
Despite their dominance in the first leg, manager Pep Guardiola still blasted his team for ‘underperforming’. He will now hope that his team does better than that first-leg performance in front of their fans.
Meanwhile, the hosts come into this tie on the back of a 4-1 win over their fierce rivals Manchester United in the Premier League. The win made it three wins in a row in all competitions and highlighted the form that they are currently in.
Possible Man City starting line-up
Ederson Moraes, Kyle Walker, John Stones, Aymeric Laporte, Joao Cancelo, Kevin De Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan, Bernardo Silva, Riyad Mahrez, Phil Foden, Raheem Sterling.
Injured: Nathan Ake, Ruben Dias, Cole Palmer
Doubtful: Zack Steffen
Suspended: Benjamin Mendy
Sporting Lisbon
After a terrible first-leg performance, Sporting Lisbon have nothing to play for in the UCL this season.
It has been a rough few weeks for the visitors, who have been cut six points adrift in the title race, dumped out of the semi-final of the Taça de Portugal.
To make matter worse, they will now look to do the impossible by over-turning a five-goal deficit. However, no team has overturned a five-goal deficit in the history of the UCL and the Portuguese side does not look like the first team that will pull that off such a feat.
But at least they will look to redeem themselves by putting up a better performance when they travel to England.
However, an interesting fact to note is that this will be only the first time at the ninth attempt that an English side has knocked Sporting out of Europe during a two-legged affair, assuming they lose this game).
Possible Sporting starting line-up
Antonio Adan, Goncalo Inacio, Sebastian Coates, Matheus Reis; Ricardo Esgaio, Ruben Vinagre, Dario Essugo, Pablo Sarabia; Nuno Santos, Islam Slimani, Pablo Sarabia.
Injured: Pedro Goncalves, Daniel, Braganca
Doubtful: Joao Palhinha
Suspended: Nunez Matheus
Prediction
Man City 3-0 Sporting
