Pep Guardiola says they’ll need to be ‘perfect’ if they’re to pull it off. Fernandinho agrees. So do most football fans – those who don’t just don’t believe it’s possible at all.
If Manchester City are to overcome Liverpool on Tuesday evening, it will be a famous comeback worthy of being given pride of place in the history of the club. Pull it off, and it’ll be up there with 93:20 – it could be a defining moment not just in the club’s history, but for the very fabric of its identity. “We’ll fight til the end,” goes the chant – turning around a Champions League quarter-final from a deficit which has only been overcome twice in the competition’s history would lend another dimension to the song.
There are many and varied reasons to believe that this cannot be done. City’s sudden loss of form, the fact they’ve been conceding goals, and the fact that this is the first real mental test Guardiola’s Blues have suffered this season: all of that will give massive belief to Liverpool.
But when you lose the first leg of a Champions League knockout round 3-0, any reasons to believe you can’t go through are obvious. There are also plenty of reasons to believe that City can.
Here’s what the Blues have to do if they are to beat Liverpool and take their place in an unlikely Champions League semi-final.
Don’t panic
It sounds obvious, but the headless chicken look just won’t do it for City this week. There are times when throwing caution to the wind and playing as if there’s no tomorrow can be well-advised. This isn’t one of those times.
Fire in the belly is needed to come back from such a deficit, sure, but City will also need ice in the mind if they are to nick the three goals needed to take the tie to extra time and keep Liverpool out at the other end.
City have have already proven they can score five against Liverpool this season, though, and showed in the Premier League game at Anfield that scoring multiple goals in a short space of time is not beyond them either.
Play their normal game
To come back from such a deficit against a team who are on top form with such good players is a special situation for City, who will need to overcome the odds.
But of the 15 home games that City have played in the Premier League this season – that is, in their most normal games against fellow English sides – Guardiola’s side have won eight of them by a margin of three goals or greater. That includes a 5-0 victory over Liverpool in what was, admittedly, a game with a bit of an asterisk beside it.
City have been so dominant at times this season that we almost forget that the margins of victory have routinely passed the three-goal mark. This would be an historic comeback, make no mistake about that, but given how this season’s gone at the Etihad would it really be as big of a shock as it feels right now?
Adapt to circumstances
And yet, as good as City have been at times this season, that dominance in itself poses a problem which was visible at the end of the first leg at Anfield.
Guardiola’s sides are adaptable. They are fluid and they are tactically astute. But what they’re bad at is diverging from their principles, even a little bit. Of course, such a clear idea of what they want to do is one of the many reasons they’ve been so good this season, but in the final few minutes, it became clear that Plan A wasn’t working and City simply carried on with their natural game regardless.
That’s not to say that they should have started lumping it into the box, but perhaps a more urgent approach was necessary. If the time comes on Tuesday night to play more direct, City should take it: remember, even Sergi Roberto’s winning goal for Barcelona against Paris Saint-Germain last season came from a hopeful Neymar ball over the top of the defence.
