That’s all from me. Stay tuned for a full match report from the Etihad Stadium – which should be live within the next few minutes. Bye!
Updated
Birthday boy Raheem Sterling has spoken to BT Sport:
It’s a good thing, it’s what I’ve been dreaming of all my life, to score in the Champions League, and for it to come on my birthday makes it even more special. Nothing really changed second half, we had to slow the game down a little bit, tried to keep the ball a bit better and work the ball into scoring areas.
It’s brilliant, a brilliant feeling for the boys. We’ve worked hard and I think we’ve deserved it. We’ve won today and shown the character we can show. The most important thing was to avoid the big teams in the next round and hopefully get a fair draw.
A remarkable six minutes, as City’s continual second-half door-knocking resulted in belated but emphatic floodgate-openage, turned the match and the group on its head. In the first half they attacked tamely, in the second gamely if unconvincingly, making few genuine chances until the breakthrough. And then, as time was starting to run short, Clichy’s cross took a slight deflection at the near post and ran to Sterling, and everything changed.
Manchester City win Group D
The final whistle goes in Seville, where Juventus have lost 1-0! Juve finish as runners-up, Sevilla are in the Europa League, and Borussia Mönchengladbach have no European football to look forward to in 2016.
Final score: Manchester City 4-2 Borussia Mönchengladbach
90+4 mins: One more shot from City, Bony curls wide and the referee blows his whistle.
90+3 mins: Touré tries to prod to Sterling, but the ball deflects off a defender, a forward and another defender before finally breaking to Sterling, who stretches but can only get studs on the ball.
90+2 mins: One more minute of stoppage time to play and City are playing keep-ball.
90 mins: So close for Borussia! A 20-yard shot is deflected off Otamendi, and a wrong-footed Hart does well to push it away! Even then it goes to another Borussia player, but his attempted pull-back is intercepted.
89 mins: You need a proofreader, Mumpe. But since you ask PSV and Wolfsburg are on their way through, and United on their way out.
@Simon_Burnton whoz thru btn united& wolveb
— mumpe Allan (@mumpe_allan) December 8, 2015
88 mins: Xhaka has a shot from 35 yards, that flies well over the bar.
87 mins: Though incredibly Wolfsburg have just scored again! 3-2 there, and United heading out again.
87 mins: Meanwhile Wolfsburg have scored an 82nd-minute own goal to hand Manchester United an equaliser, and as things stand both Manchester sides are going through.
GOAL! Man City 4-2 Borussia Mönchengladbach (Bony, 85)
City have been transformed this half, but this is extraordinary. Kolarov plays a lovely one-two with Sterling on the left and then crosses to Bony, whose finish is heading wide until it bounces off a defender’s leg and back to him – and his second attempt is much better!
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84 mins: Oscar Wednt comes off and Thorgan Hazard comes on.
83 mins: Today is Raheem Sterling’s 21st birthday. It’s turning into quite a good one.
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GOAL! Man City 3-2 Borussia Mönchengladbach (Sterling, 81 mins)
Another! Bony is given too much space here, with only one defender on him, and after he’s released by Silva’s headed flick – yes, Silva’s headed flick – he cuts inside Elvedi and lays off to Sterling, who curls across goal and in!
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81 mins: And that’s Clichy’s last touch, Bacary Sagna replacing him.
GOAL! Man City 2-2 Borussia Mönchengladbach (Sterling, 80 mins)
Clichy gets to the byline and crosses low, just behind Bony and into the path of Sterling, who sidefoots past Sommer!
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78 mins: Navas crosses from the right, and the ball flicks a Borussia hand and ends up in Sommer’s grasp. Navas demands a penalty, but isn’t getting one.
76 mins: City attack again, and Navas has the ball on the right while Touré in the middle waves his arms about in “look-at-all-the-space-I’m-in” style. Navas looks at all the space he’s in, waits until he’s no longer in it, and then kicks it. Bah.
75 mins: Xhaka has a shot that whistles wide, while in Madrid real score their eighth goal against Malmö, Benzema becoming their second hat-trick scorer of the night.
73 mins: Another chance for City! Drmic comes on as Kolarov prepares to take a free-kick from the left, and he picks out Otamendi in the middle, who heads over!
72 mins: Josip Drmic is coming on for Fabian Johnson, who has played well but is now limping.
71 mins: So City could still win this group – but only if they can win this game. Momentum is very much with them, but a second goal is proving elusive.
69 mins: Goal! Not in this game, but potentially crucial – Sevilla have gone 1-0 up against Juventus, Llorente heading over Buffon from a corner.
67 mins: Another Sommer save – and this one’s a good ‘un! A deflected shot falls to Sterling, who shoots low across goal, where Sommer flings himself to his left to palm it away!
66 mins: And a substitution for Borussia, who bring Marvin Schulz on for the gloriously-named Mahmoud Dahoud.
65 mins: A double substitution for City: Bony and Navas come on, De Bruyne and Delph come off.
65 mins: City are on top here, but not making the most of it. Silva has the ball in the area with four team-mates to his right. He waits a while, and then crosses over all of them.
63 mins: Chance! Probably City’s best of the game! Kolarov on the left finds Sterling with a low ball across the edge of the area, and the forward is in all sorts of space, able to control, look up and pick his spot. The spot he picks, though, is on Sommer’s gloves.
Updated
62 mins: in other Champions League news, Cristiano Ronaldo has scored four as Real lead Malmö 6-0 (Benzema got the first couple).
61 mins: Shot! Sterling has the ball on the left-hand side of the area, cuts in on his right foot, decides not to shoot yet so keeps going, and keeps deciding not to shoot yet, and keeps going, across the goal and beyond, until he almost runs into Silva, who takes the ball off him and sends it low but weak towards Sommer.
59 mins: And at the end of it City nearly score! Fernandinho tries to cross to Sterling and inevitably a defender gets there first. Strangely Ekvedi tries to chest back to his own keeper and Sterling nips in, only for Sommer to rush out and get in the way!
57 mins: A flat few minutes, almost all of it played within 20 yards of the half-way line.
53 mins: Nearly! Nearly a chance, anyway. City push men forward, but Borussia bring men back, crowding the area, and City work the ball between Silva and De Bruyne without either having a real glimpse of goal, and eventually it’s laid back to Kolarov, whose drive is deflected to safety.
51 mins: Kolarov bursts all the way down the left in support of Sterling, gets the ball, plays a rubbish centre into the nearest defender, and then goes off the pitch and over the advertising screens. He appears to be unscathed, though he may be a little bit knackered.
49 mins: Sterling just won a header! True, he had to clamber all over a defender to do it, conceding a free-kick in the process, but still.
47 mins: André Schubert has a rather scary intensity about him, doesn’t he? Whenever the cameras pick him out he’s standing, totally still, staring straight ahead as if he’s trying to kill someone with his eyes.
Peeeeeeeeep!
46 mins: We’re back under way!
It’s still Sevilla 0-0 Juventus, and if there’s no goal there City can score, or indeed concede, as many as they choose here without it making any difference whatsoever (to them).
I don’t think the no-striker experiment is working. City’s forwards are flapping about randomly, like doors without a hinge, and the passing in attacking areas has been very poor indeed, with only one Sterling backheel really coming off.
Updated
Half time: Man City 1-2 Borussia Mönchengladbach
45+1 mins: Peeep! It’s half time!
GOAL! Manchester City 1-2 Borussia Mönchengladbach (Raffael, 42 mins)
A fast attack from the visitors. Johnson, I think, breaks from midfield, running towards the City area, and then he keeps running, and nobody really tries to stop him (you may spot a theme here), and then finally, when he’s about 20 yards out, both central defenders fling themselves at him, and are thus out of position when the ball breaks to Wendt in the area, and it swiftly ends with Raffael touching past Hart from six yards!
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41 mins: Finally a decent cross! Fernandinho with it, from the right, but nobody is busting a gut to get into the penalty area, and all City end up with is a corner.
39 mins: Sterling is allowed to run clear on the right as City prepare for a throw-in, as if the Borussia defence was expecting a flag. It didn’t come, but then neither did a decent cross.
36 mins: De Bruyne hasn’t played a decent pass in the final third yet, despite several opportunities. His attempt to pick out Sterling a moment ago, with a low pass from the right, was pretty useless, and Sommer gathers.
34 mins: Touré has a shot now, from further out, that goes further over the bar.
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32 mins: Back in Manchester, Sterling has a shot from 25 yards that drifts over the bar.
31 mins: Wolfsburg have taken the lead against Manchester United – it’s 2-1 now over in Germany. Lovely goal too.
29 mins: Borussia rampage down the left again, Johnson leaving Clichy trailing, and he’s got five players bursting into the penalty area to help him! He tries to pick out one of the two arriving late at the edge of the area, but Touré intercepts. Still, there’s promise here for the visitors.
28 mins: Hart picks out De Bruyne with an early clearance, sending the forward scurrying into space down the right, but then he has to wait for ages for someone to catch up with play, and then plays a poor low cross that has no chance of finding them.
26 mins: Kolarov finds space on the left, looks up, sees De Bruyne and plays a perfect cross to precisely the spot where the Belgian was standing at the time. Sadly, De Bruyne ran into a new spot moments earlier.
24 mins: Wendt carves a massive hole in the City defence with a fairly straightforward one-two, which Clichy doesn’t really fancy covering, but he can’t then pick out a team-mate with his cross.
21 mins: Korb is German for basket.
GOAL! Man City 1-1 Borussia Mönchengladbach (Korb,19 mins)
Johnson breaks from midfield, running towards the City area, and then he keeps running, and nobody really tries to stop him, and once he’s in the area he slides the ball low to his right, where Korb is arriving at pace and slams the ball low across Hart!
Updated
GOAL! Manchester City 1-0 Borussia Mönchengladbach (Silva, 16 mins)
Lovely goal! Sterling backheels the ball into the path of Silva, bursting into the left side of the area. He looks across, where there’s one blue shirt and a load of defenders, and then blasts high past Yann Sommer at the near post!
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15 mins: Nothing comes from that one. Meanwhile, Wolfsburg have equalised against United.
13 mins: De Bruyne crosses low from the left and a defender slides to boot it emphatically out of play before it reaches the near post. From the corner – though rather indirectly – Sterling crosses nicely from the right, and that too leads to a corner.
12 mins: Sterling is hacked down on halfway, but no caution is forthcoming. And Manchester United have scored, Anthony Martial ending his dry run.
9 mins: The excellently vocal visiting fans in full:
Bit loud this lot. #cityvbmg #mcfc pic.twitter.com/K2zVj476Je
— BlueMoonRisingTV (@BMRisingTV) December 8, 2015
6 mins: City are doing some attacking, though. Sterling was found in a good position on the edge of the area a minute or so ago, but by the time he’d decided what he wanted to do he no longer had the space to do it, and now Touré crosses from the right, but there’s nobody to meet it in the middle.
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5 mins: Another shot! And it’s Borussia again! Julian Korb breaks the offside trap on the right, races into the area and then blazes wide of the near post!
4 mins: De Bruyne and Sterling are City’s makeshift front two tonight, with Silva playing just behind.
2 mins: A shot! The first effort of the game comes from Fabian Johnson, but it’s emphatically wayward.
Peeeeeeeeeeeeep!
1 min: And we’re off! Manchester City get the ball rolling, and work it immediately back to Joe Hart, who boots long. Raheem Sterling doesn’t win the header.
Kick-off but moments away now. Deep breath.
The players come out of the tunnel, with quite a lot of empty seats, particularly in the top tier of the Etihad. There’s a good number of Mönchengladbachians, or whatever they’re called. Hurra, Hurra, die Gladbacher sind da, as I believe they say in Germany.
Latest: the players should have been in the tunnel 20 seconds ago.
Tonight’s schedule in full. Not sure I’ve seen one of these documents before. It’s remarkably precise, down to the second in places:
Noch eine Stunde bis zum Anpfiff. #CITYvBMG #Fohlenelf #UCL #AufAufAuf pic.twitter.com/tqyFmG0oTF
— Borussia (@borussia) December 8, 2015
Joe Hart seems happy about something.
Manuel Pellegrini has had a chat with BT Sport.
We must be optimist for the future. I hope we are not again to have a difficult draw, but of course if you can finish first it’s better. It doesn’t guarantee that you won’t have a difficult draw. The only thing we can do is try to win our game, and we’ll see what happens between Juventus and Seville.
Relax, everybody – Glenn Hoddle has arrived.
Manchester City play with no striker, with Agüero injured and Bony on the bench. Yaya Touré is fit to start, however, and Mangala returns to the side after missing the defeat at Stoke.
Broadcasting update: BT Sport’s match coverage gets under way without Glenn Hoddle, who’s stuck in traffic. Harry Redknapp is there though.
A video!
You could watch these in order, if you like, to get the full retro-cinematic experience.
The teams!
Here’s this evening’s official, Uefa-endorsed team sheet:
The official team sheets haven’t yet been published, but this appears to be City’s line-up:
Manchester City XI: Hart, Clichy, Otamendi, Mangala, Kolarov, Toure, Fernandinho, Delph, Silva, De Bruyne, Sterling. #UCL
— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) December 8, 2015
Hello world!
Well then. City can relax. Kind of. They are, after all, about to play a gruelling 90 minutes of Champions League football, so relaxation probably doesn’t cover it, but compared with other English clubs they’re in a pretty good place. Qualification is guaranteed, but City can only win the group if Juventus lose at Sevilla, in which case victory would take them top. It’s a mildly unlikely scenario, given that Sevilla haven’t taken a point in the competition for nearly three months, since they won their first game 3-0 against this very Mönchengladbach side.
Handily, City have in their number a Mönchengladbach-frustration specialist in the shape of Martín Demichelis, who has played them 12 times without ever losing (there’s an even draw/victory split).
Referee news! Holland’s Danny Makkelie is the man in the middle. A couple of weeks ago he had to stop a game between Go Ahead Eagles and Vitesse after a fan ran towards him after he awarded two penalties against the home side and sent one of their players off. “I felt very uncomfortable,” he said, though he noted that “the chants [about me] were somewhat more positive in the second half”. He’s a policeman. Also involved: additional assistant referee Serdar Gozobuyuk, who was accused of match-fixing earlier this year and was investigated (and cleared) in 2011 after being accused of playing poker with players. “I want to find out who is accusing me and why someone wants to do this to me,” he raged at the time. “I’ve never played poker with players. It’s a ridiculous accusation. Bullshit!” The other additional assistant referee, Kamphuis Jochem, was labelled “the very worst referee there is” by the former footballer turned pundit and coach Hans Kraay Jr. And here’s a picture of Mario Diks, one of tonight’s assistants, on holiday. He says he had a lovely boat ride:
Heerlijk zo'n dagje varen! #familytime pic.twitter.com/azH0L0Dmss
— Mario Diks (@MarioDiks) August 8, 2015
Simon will be here shortly.
In the meantime, here’s Jamie Jackson’s match preview:
Manuel Pellegrini has denied Manchester City struggle without Vincent Kompany despite the side having markedly poorer results when the captain has been absent this season.
City are again without the Belgian for Tuesday evening’s match, their final Group D game, at home to Borussia Mönchengladbach. Kompany is unavailable because of a calf problem, and on Saturday City lost 2-0 at Stoke City in a display that featured some of the side’s poorest defending of the campaign.
Kompany missed the game and has played in only eight of City’s 15 Premier League matches this season. His value is illustrated by them being unbeaten in those games, winning six and conceding only once. The centre-back’s appearances have coincided with seven clean sheets, while 20 of a possible 24 points have been claimed.
Read the full article here.
