Manchester City’s Champions League campaign took another big hit on Tuesday night as Roma left Manchester with a draw after a hotly-contested game in which there was poor defending and great attacking play almost in tandem. The 1-1 draw leaves City on just one point from the opening two group games, three points behind their Italian rivals and five off German side Bayern Munich, who won away at CSKA Moscow earlier in the day.
The City side was much changed for the visit of Rudi Garcia’s Roma side; Joe Hart came back in for Willy Caballero, whilst Eliaquim Mangala was left on the bench in the place of Martin Demichelis. This might be due to the fact Mangala has played the last three games, but partly due to Saturday’s win at Hull, in which the summer signing from Porto conceded a penalty and scored an own goal. He might not have many performances as damaging as that in his City career, but it won’t have done his confidence any good. Stevan Jovetić was also on the bench after being absent for the last few weeks.
City scored early on at the weekend via Sergio Agüero and on Tuesday it happened again. The Blues won a penalty when Maicon held back the Argentine forward in the box, an offence which in itself could be worth a red card (the Brazilian was given a yellow, and given City still had the goalscoring chance it probably was the correct decision); Agüero duly stepped home to send the Roma keeper the wrong way and put the hosts into the lead just 4 minutes in.
2 minutes later, Maicon almost redeemed himself when he slammed a shot against the bar; the ball was played over the top, and the ex-City man took it down before volleying towards goal. Save for the woodwork, it would’ve been the equaliser.
Roma’s equaliser eventually did come on 23 minutes, via veteran attack Francesco Totti. A good pass from Belgian midfielder Radja Nainggolan put the 38-year-old Italian through on goal in the left channel. Joe Hart came out to meet him, but as England’s number one spread himself to give Totti less space to work with, the Roma man chipped Hart to send the ball home, making Totti the oldest ever Champions League scorer in the process. It was also his first ever goal in England.
After that goal, Roma started playing up as they looked for a second. They overran their hosts in midfield as The Blues tried to cope with Nainggolan, Keita and Pjanić. Gervinho and Florenzi on the wings gave their full-backs problems, especially with the overlap. At times it definitely looked like Roma were set to take the lead as they ran rings around our defence, playing the long game. Gervinho came close with a shot from a tight angle, and City got to half-time relatively unscathed.
For how much the second half lacked in goals, it definitely made up for it in terms of action. Both sides went close as City improved from their decidedly lacklustre first 45 minutes. Again, Roma threatened on the attack with fast, counter-attacking football. Up the other end, City tried to find an opening to exploit. Eventually Pellegrini brought Frank Lampard and James Milner on to cope with the overload in midfield, as well as Jovetić in the place of Agüero in what was by then a one-man strikeforce. The changes had a positive effect on the side. Milner improved on what Jesús Navas had been able to provide in the first period, whilst Lampard controlled the ball in midfield, distributing it well.
As the half wore on and the visitors started to tire, City got more and more half-chances to try and find that all-important winning goal. There were shouts for a penalty on Fernandinho after the Brazilian went on a good run; Silva came within inches of scoring from close-range in injury time, putting his first-time shot wide; Lampard forced a save out of Lukasz Skorupski from range. Stevan Jovetić fired two shots from range well out of the danger zone, and by that point City were getting desperate. The ref eventually blew his whistle on a disappointing night for The Citizens.
Despite the result that makes qualification that bit harder, there were some encouraging performances. Joe Hart was lucky not to keep a clean sheet considering some of the saves he made, whereas James Milner and Frank Lampard made a big impact when they came on. Other players who did comparatively well include Fernandinho who looked strong, and Edin Džeko making use of his physical presence for once.
With two games now played, we’re all certainly getting a bit concerned that qualification is anything but assured. There’s still both games against CSKA Moscow to play, the visit to Italy and Bayern Munich are scheduled to come to Manchester in November. In a worst case scenario (in the minds of the City hierarchy anyway), City drop to the Europa League for the rest of the campaign, and that might not be a bad thing. Were we to win it – which doesn’t seem entirely unlikely – it could give the squad the impetus to perform better in the Champions League, giving us that “umph” we often seem to be lacking.
