Pressure on as Man City need to win in Moscow

Manchester City face the trip over to Russia to play CSKA Moscow after a disappointing start to their Champions League campaign which has seen them pick up only one point after games away to Bayern Munich and at home to AS Roma. Manuel Pellegrini will know that his team can not afford any slip ups in this match as they look to keep pace with both Bayern and Roma at the top of the group.

Despite their indifferent form in the Champions League, Manchester City have been making steady progress in the Premier League and following their 4-1 victory of Tottenham Hotspur on the weekend enter this match as 4/6 favourites with BetVictor. With Roma and Bayern Munich playing against each other twice over the next few weeks, it`s vital that Manchester City take advantage of any dropped points by either team in those games by first winning this one and also the return fixture at home.

As victory is so important in this match, expect Sergio Aguero to make his second start in four days and after the sensational form shown by the striker against Spurs, it`s difficult not to back him at 4/1 with william hill to open the scoring in this game. Aguero also has experience of scoring against CSKA Moscow in the same stadium, doing so twice last season. Having returned late from international duty with the Ivory Coast, Yaya Toure did not start the game on the weekend and will be eager to get his season going in this one, he is available at 7/12 with bet365 to get the first goal. However, only one goal separated CSKA and Bayern Munich in their last home match and this could be a similarly tight score line. Even if he does not make the starting line-up, expect Edin Dzeko to play some part in the game and he is 7/5 with bet365 to score at any time.

One of the main difficulties faced by Manchester City in this match, other than the opposition is going to be the fact that the stadium will be empty and this made for a strange atmosphere when Bayern Munich arrived in town before the international break, a game which they won by just one goal to nil. Furthermore, CSKA have been in excellent form domestically, winning their last match 6-0 but are still 5-1 with SkyBet to win the game, perhaps due to the fact that they have lost their last six games in the Champions League. CSKA are also missing Alan Dzagoev and Pontus Wernbloom to suspension and are sweating on the fitness of striker Seydou Doumbia and therefore, if they are to get anything out of the match it`s likely to be a point, which is available at 3/1 with betfred.

CSKA Moscow have only lost 3 of their last 15 home matches and interestingly, each one of those loses came by the same 1-0 score line. Despite clearly being second best to Bayern Munich, CSKA still only lost the match 1-0 and Manchester City are 8/1 with BetVictor to win by the same score. The English champions can also be backed at 2/1 with the same firm to win the match without conceding a goal.

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21/10/2014     © Frixo 2024