The Champions League round of 16 ties are underway and Manchester City will return to European action when they take on Borussia Monchengladbach in Hungary next week.
The first leg will take place at the Puskas Arena in Budapest on Wednesday night and Man City are fully expected to make light work of the German outfit after returning to top form in recent weeks.
Pep Guardiola’s men extended their winning streak to 16 games in all competitions with an impressive 3-1 victory over Everton last week and currently sit 10 points clear at the top of the Premier League table.
The Citizens are certainly back to their best and look in formidable form right now so they’ll be in confident mood ahead of their Champions League first leg clash with Monchengladbach next week.
Manchester City are the 1/3 odds-on favourites to see-off the Bundesliga side and Guardiola is under increasing pressure to finally land the clubs first Champions League trophy after years of heavy investment in the squad.
Pressure on City
Man City have poured hundreds of millions of pounds into improving their squad over the past decade but they are yet to make any serious impression in the Champions League with just one semi-final to show for it.
However, they have a great chance of going all the way this season and according to research from Betway, reaching the final should be a minimum requirement for Manchester City this year based on the valuation of their squad.
More often than not, the most valuable squads go further in the Champions League and it’s no surprise that the 16 clubs left in the competition this season are all in the top 18 highest-valued squad list.
The graphic below shows how the Champions League ties would go if it was based just on the valuation of the squads, and as you can see Manchester City should go all the way to meet Liverpool in the final.
A study into player valuations concluded that Manchester City’s squad is currently worth around €1.06 billion. Only Premier League champions Liverpool have a more valuable squad with Jurgen Klopp’s men coming in at €1.1 billion.
The third most valued squad is German champions Bayern Munich at a distant €891.4 million so English heavy-weights Man City and Liverpool have the means to go all the way in the Champions League this season. This is reflected in the odds as City are the joint 3/1 favourites with Bayern to win the Champions League. Liverpool are currently 15/2 third favourites.
With injury-hit Liverpool struggling for consistent form this season, this could finally be the year that City land their first Champions League trophy and justify the huge investment that’s been ploughed into the club by owner Sheikh Mansour.
