Right then, I’m off. Here’s the match report again. Bye!
Pep Guardiola seems a bit disappointed:
In general it was good. We controlled the game. Unfortunately we were not clinical up front, it is something we have to improve in this competition. Up front we have to be more clinical. The situations are clear, one against one against the keeper or against the defenders, and in this competition you have to be perfect to be sure you can go through.
Here’s Jamie Jackson’s match report:
Pep Guardiola speaks of how vital it is to “arrive” in optimum form when the Champions League knockout phase begins. This smooth display illustrated why as Manchester City’s remarkable run went to 19 consecutive wins courtesy of the excellent João Cancelo, who was key in each goal. The manager will know passage to the quarter-finals is not complete but Borussia Mönchengladbach are firm underdogs to turn this tie around. Next up for City is West Ham on Saturday when David Moyes has to somehow find a way to outmanoeuvre Guardiola.
Much more here:
Bernardo Silva is pleased.
It was a good game for us. We tried to play it simple, not to make mistakes, to control possession as we always do, and to create chances and score goals. It was a good game for us, and a good win. I try to practise [heading] a lot. With Ruben we make a little competition to see who scores more goals with their head.
Manchester City were outstandingly good again tonight. They didn’t create an enormous number of chances, but they had the game in a Vader-like neck grip from minute one to minute 93 (whereupon there was a slight blip).
Final score: Borussia Mönchengladbach 0-2 Manchester City
90+4 mins: Rodri’s pass is intercepted by Wolf, who takes a touch and shoots low from the edge of the area! Ederson saves, his first meaningful action of the night, and the final whistle blows!
90+3 mins: Christoph Kramer comes off for some late cramp treatment. He’s battling his own body here. Kramer v Kramer.
90+2 mins: A Ferran Torres piledriver hits Ginter’s outstretched leg, apparently causing some pain.
90+1 mins: There will be three minutes of stoppage time, or similar.
90 mins: Bernardo Silva miscues a straightforward short pass, gifting Mönchengladbach a throw-in, and the closest City have come tonight to a noteworthy error.
87 mins: Now Walker goes down as Bensebaini finally mistimes a tackle, but again the referee is unmoved, despite Walker executing several agonised forward rolls in an attempt to convince him of the agony he is experiencing. As the game progresses, Walker jumps up and runs away again.
87 mins: Hofmann limps gingerly from the field, and Hannes Wolf comes on.
85 mins: Hofmann cuts into the penalty area and goes down as Cancelo moves across to block his path. The referee isn’t impressed, and VAR agrees with him, while Hofmann stays down having somehow injured himself in the process.
83 mins: Lovely move from City, featuring an Aguero backheel flick and a fine final pass from Ferran Torres, but Mahrez takes the ball too wide and too far, and there’s no way past Sommer from there.
80 mins: Ferran Torres and Sergio Aguero are on, and Jesus and Foden are off. It’s the first we’ve seen of Aguero since he got four minutes on 3 January.
78 mins: Another wonderful Cancelo cross, and this time Gundogan nods down and Foden half-volleys high.
77 mins: Rodri plays Mahrez through, but his first touch is poor. Or rather excellent. It is disappointingly good, and rather than sending the ball forward to run onto it sticks under his feet, he has to stop, and the defence gets back. “Is it possible Pep doesn’t actually know he has that haute couture logo on the back of his coat?” wonders Graham Moger. “At school, we used to have a trick with a blackboard rubber and chalk, and the victim wasn’t aware of the prank until removing their school blazer. That’s one for your younger readers - both of them.”
75 mins: Another forward on the pitch for Mönchengladbach, as Breel Embolo comes on for Lars Stindl.
73 mins: A 70-yard first-time back-pass by Gundogan, as City play keep-ball.
69 mins: Mahrez replaces Sterling, who has been both very good and a bit frustrating.
67 mins: City have completed 173 more passes than Mönchengladbach so far.
GOAL! Borussia Mönchengladbach 0-2 Manchester City (Jesus, 65 mins)
Another perfect cross from Cancelo, another header from Bernardo Silva, and this time he knocks it back across goal from beyond the far post and Jesus gets a toe to it just before Ginter to turn in from four yards!
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64 mins: Borussia take off Pléa and Lainer, and bring on Thuram and Lazaro.
63 mins: And nearly an equaliser! This time Zakaria has the ball on the right and though his cross is behind Pléa the forward tries a spinning backheel volley and sends it just a foot wide of goal!
59 mins: A chance on the break for Borussia! Zakaria has an opportunity to play in Pléa, but then he doesn’t, and his pass runs through to Ederson.
58 mins: City are looking exceedingly comfortable here, but aren’t creating a lot.
54 mins: What a chance for a second! Bensebaini’s attempted back-pass goes straight to Jesus, who cuts in from the right but seems much keener on squaring than on shooting, delays his shot too long, and gives Elvedi a chance to slide across and take the ball!
50 mins: Chance for Borussia to nearly do a thing! Bensebaini cuts in from the left, 20 yards inside City’s half, and on his right Lainer makes an excellent run and a pass through is on, but Bensebaini doesn’t see it, turns back, and the brief flicker of hope is over.
49 mins: Borussia can either have the ball, or be in City’s half. They have found no way of combining them, and being in City’s half but without the ball is even worse than being in their own half without it.
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46 mins: Peeeeeeep! Game back on!
The players are back out, and both sides are unchanged. Strap yourselves in and get ready for another 45 minutes of fun.
“Now, that abomination of a coat is worrying enough. But you also reported that when talking about team selection before the game, Pep remarked that ‘Next game, against Southampton, we are going to change five or six or seven,’” writes Daniel Barnett. “I’m pretty sure that City’s next game is actually at home to West Ham on Saturday. Is Pep OK? Perhaps he’s been replaced by a sub-standard simulacrum for this jaunt abroad? I think we should be told.” I’m quite certain he said Southampton, but City have three more games to play before they come up against them, and I trust Pep’s expertise and preparation a lot more than my own ears.
Half time: Borussia Mönchengladbach 0-1 Manchester City
45+2 mins: City have had 61% of possession and 100% of the shots. Borussia nearly got the ball to Pléa in a dangerous area once, which is as good as it got for them. The “home” side need to up their game, a lot.
45+1 mins: We’re in the first and probably only minute of stoppage time, and Foden has smashed a long-range drive over the bar.
Tastefully done #MCFC
— Stewart Weir* (@sweirz) February 24, 2021
It would have been so easy to make this look cheap and tacky .. pic.twitter.com/6eoXAnZHz7
43 mins: A lovely City move ends with a low cross from the right but no fairytale finish, and the ball is cleared.
42 mins: Sterling seems to have switched flanks with Foden and is now on the left, having escaped from Bensebaini and his inconveniently precise tackling.
40 mins: Cancelo gets the ball past Neuhaus thanks to a lucky bobble and thinks he might as well chance his arm, but his luck doesn’t hold and the shot flies well over the bar.
39 mins: And here’s the goal. That cross, though. Yum.
Joao Cancelo with the perfect assist 🎯
— Football on BT Sport (@btsportfootball) February 24, 2021
On a plate for Bernardo Silva who heads it home at the far post! 🙌
Man City open the scoring! pic.twitter.com/klBEZSOkx1
37 mins: Here’s the coat. It’s without doubt the most ghastly thing I’ve ever seen Guardiola wear. There’s no sign of it in the online club shop, raising the possibility that it is a one-off bespoke item, that Guardiola has taken a perfectly serviceable, in fact really rather snazzy, coat and demanded the application of some horrible, shiny plastic logo to the rear.
33 mins: According to Uefa statistics City have had 56% of possession, but made it feel like 75%.
Pep's coat is incredible. All business wool-mix three quarter overcoat to the front. Club logo plastic stencil ultra on the back
— Barney Ronay (@barneyronay) February 24, 2021
GOAL! Borussia VfL 1900 Mönchengladbach 0-1 Manchester City (Bernardo Silva, 29 mins)
João Cancelo’s cross from the left needs to be framed and hung in the National Gallery, for the world to admire in perpetuity. Bernardo Silva just needs to get something on it after it dips over all the centre-backs and lands on his head, which he duly does!
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27 mins: Sterling is tackled inside the penalty area by a diving Bensebaini, and the referee puts his whistle to his lips and ... takes it away again. Replays show the defender getting a faint toe on the ball , and Bensebaini’s every tackle has been inch-perfect so far.
23 mins: Bernardo Silva’s cross is cut out. Borussia have threatened a couple of times on the break, with Pléa offering a pacey outlet, but City remain dominant.
18 mins: I love that there is a player called Pléa. He has a place up front in the nominative determinism XI, with Kepa at the back and Nicky Marker in defence.
16 mins: And another chance, or a string of chances, as Rodri’s volleyed pass finds Jesus, Sterling and Gundogan with a numerical advantage at the edge of the Borussia penalty area, but the ball never quite falls to any of them and Yann Sommer somehow goes untested. City are purring here, though, and the scent of goals is in the air.
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15 mins: Another excellent intervention from Bensebaini, sliding to again deny Sterling with the kind of challenge that is a guaranteed penalty if it is anything but perfect.
13 mins: Rodri has a chance to play Sterling through, but Bensebaini slides across to block the pass.
10 mins: I’m still waiting for a photographer to send over a picture of the most eye-catching feature of the game so far, namely Pep Guardiola’s coat.
9 mins: Foden surges down the left, and there’s a good cross at the end of it, but Ginter wins that one too.
6 mins: Sterling is played through on the right, in loads of space, but his first touch is poor and allows Ginter to get across and tackle.
4 mins: City have settled into an early domination of possession, much of it so far inside their own half.
1 min: Peeeeep! City get the game started!
The pennant exchange seems to have survived Covid, although only Lars Stindl has got one to give his opposite number. That’s the warm-up done, then - time to play football.
Out come the players! There’s so much space in the tunnel/foyer area they could pretty much just play the game in there, but they decide to use the pitch anyway.
“Unzahmbar translates best as untameable,” points out Julian Menz. Or uncoachable, perhaps?
A glimpse inside Borussia’s changing room. Google informs me that unzähmbar means indomitable. The big plastic crate on top of the table contains a few plastic bottles of water and a lot of space.
City make five changes, bringing in Kyle Walker, Gabriel Jesus, Aymeric Laporte, Phil Foden and Rodri, and leaving out John Stones, Oleg Zinchenko, Kevin de Bruyne, Riyad Mahrez and Fernandinho, all of whom are on the bench. “Next game, against Southampton, we are going to change five or six or seven. It’s the only way to sustain the level,” says Pep Guardiola.
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The teams!
The teams are in, and look like this:
Borussia VfL 1900 Mönchengladbach: Sommer, Kramer, Zakaria, Stindl, Lainer, Hofmann, Bensebalnl, Ginter, Elvedl, Neuhaus. Subs: Sippel, Grun, Lang, Herrmann, Thuram, Wolf, Beyer, Traore, Wendt, Lazaro, Jantschke, Embolo.
Manchester City: Ederson, Walker, Ruben Dias, Sterling, Gundogan, Jesus, Laporte, Rodri, Bernardo Silva, Joao Cancelo, Foden. Subs: Steffen, Carson, Stones, Aguero, Zinchenko, De Bruyne, Ferran Torres, Mendy, Fernandinho, Mahrez, Garcia, Doyle.
Referee: Artur Dias (Portugal, presumably not Ruben’s dad)
Das ist unsere #FohlenElf für das erste #UCL-Achtelfinale der Vereinsgeschichte! 🐎💚 #BMGCity pic.twitter.com/Zp8ZPb8PBB
— Borussia (@borussia) February 24, 2021
How we line-up in the #UCL tonight! 📋
— Manchester City (@ManCity) February 24, 2021
XI | Ederson, Walker, Dias, Laporte, Cancelo, Rodrigo, Gundogan, Bernardo, Sterling (C), Foden, Jesus
SUBS | Steffen, Carson, Stones, Aguero, Zinchenko, De Bruyne, Torres, Mendy, Fernandinho, Mahrez, Garcia, Doyle
🔷 #ManCity pic.twitter.com/YBMT9aXEDZ
Hello world!
The round of 16 has already served up some goal-rich stonkers: on each of the three gamedays so far one of the two games has featured precisely five goals, all won by the away side (PSG, Dortmund and Bayern, since you ask). Tonight’s both look scrummy, with Real Madrid visiting Atalanta and our focus very much on Manchester City’s trip to Mönchengladbach Budapest in search of a logic-defying 19th successive victory. The teams have met three times before in European competition, twice since the English side’s transformation into a financial powerhouse (three City wins and a draw) and once in 1979, when a very much Sheikh-free City were dumped out of the Uefa Cup in the quarter-finals, there were three German sides in the semis and Mönchengladbach beat Red Star Belgrade in the two-legged final.
Anyway, enough of history. Welcome! Let’s watch the future unfold, shall we?
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