Ahead of Tuesday’s Champions League clash with Bundesliga side Borussia Monchengladbach, we spoke to football journalist Matt Hermann about what to expect. Here’s what he had to say.
1. How have Monchengladbach started the season?
Mostly well. They sailed through Champions League qualification, advanced in the German Cup, and got a win over the always dangerous Bayer Leverkusen on Bundesliga match day one. This past weekend’s 3-1 loss to Freiburg looks bad, but could be chalked up to the Foals’ habit of looking past weaker opposition when preparing for a big game like Tuesday’s, and the fact Freiburg are a bit of a bogey side for Gladbach.
2. Which Monchengladbach players could pose a threat to City?
A fair few, many of which you will know from last year’s clashes in the Champions League. Gladbach are very deep in midfield/attack and, usually, have at least a couple of dangerous options on the bench for when a player begins to tire, or Andre Schubert wants to go to plan B.
Gladbach typically don’t play with a real number nine, so it’s up to the likes of Raffael and Lars Stindl (two of the first names on the team sheet) to take turns getting into advanced areas. Those two aside, Gladbach can be a bit unpredictable as to who plays week to week. Andre Hahn (who only got a little time against City last season) played a blinder against Leverkusen in week one and found himself starting on the bench against Freiburg to make way for Thorgan Hazard, who scored a brilliant long-distance goal. Gladbach have a lot of other weapons on the wing like Fabian Johnson, Ibrahima Traore, and Oscar Wendt. It’s just a matter of who gets the start on the night.
3. Pep Guardiola sides often control matches. Will Monchengladbach be happy to absorb pressure or will they try become an anomaly in having more possession than City?
They will be happy to absorb pressure. They know it’s all but inevitable, and they also know how to have success against Guardiola teams who like to hold the ball. Gladbach dealt Bayern their first loss of the season last December and did so while conceding 60% of possession to the visiting Bavarians. In general Andre Schubert has encouraged his team to hold more of the ball and play a higher defensive line than they did under his predecessor Lucien Favre (who also notched a win and a draw with Pep, by the way), but he’s smart enough to know that’s not the way you beat Guardiola sides.
4. Have Monchengladbach improved since they faced City last season and, if so, how?
They’d like to think so, considering they had every chance to win both games and finished last season well, but I’m not so sure. The loss of Granit Xhaka this summer seems to have thrown their central midfield into a state of flux that hasn’t been resolved yet.
Xhaka and Mahmoud Dahoud were a great pairing: two talented ball-playing midfielders with good positional sense – one with a bit more appetite for scrapping, the other for the exquisite pass. Now that Xhaka is gone, and Christoph Kramer is in, Dahoud has been second-choice to Tobias Strobl for most of the new season. That pairing (Kramer and Strobl) might be more complementary but leaving out Dahoud (one of Gladbach’s best players) seems foolish. We’ll see how things progress, but in the CL opener at the Etihad, that uncertainty could mean trouble.
5. Do Monchengladbach have any major injury concerns?
Not much. Alvaro Dominguez (back) might be playing in central defence if he were healthy, and Patrick Herrmann (hamstring) would represent yet another option for Gladbach in forward areas. Overall Gladbach have a healthy squad.
6. And, finally, your score prediction, please.
City 2-1 Gladbach. Reckon they’ll do about as well as United – keep it close, but get outplayed pretty definitively.
Thanks to Matt Hermann for speaking to our editor, Jack Brain.
