Champions League: Manchester City need to shelve conservative tactic to overturn three-goal deficit against Liverpool

Rest assured, Manchester City’s bus will be safe this time around. Last week in Liverpool, missiles rained on the coach carrying the squad. Such was the damage, the bus could not be summoned for the return journey. By the end of the match, the battered state of the vehicle became an easy metaphor for City’s dire state.

Pep Guardiola and his men now move into an atmosphere with a different kind of tension. In the manager’s words, they will hope to “make the perfect game”. Guardiola elaborated his point. “All the conditions have to be perfect. The result is tough, but we have 90 minutes and in football everything can happen. What we are going to do is try."

Try, they will. But City will be up against a Liverpool team which is defined by its goal-scoring ability. Guardiola’s men have already borne the brunt of Jurgen Klopp’s iridescent bunch twice this season. And both defeats exposed City in a way that was not thought possible. The results, in fact, have given confidence to fellow challengers that the runaway Premier League leaders possess a veritable vulnerability – although Antonio Conte remains wary of them.

It is unlikely that Manchester United would have summoned the belief for their second-half comeback on Saturday, if not for Liverpool’s demolition of City last week. Guardiola’s side, arguably the best in England in recent years, has been able to cover its defensive inadequacies by improving its ball possession this season. However, when faced with a team as relentless as Liverpool, the opposition’s high-pressing and intensity tend to force the City defenders into decisions they would rather not make.

The problem for Guardiola, in both defeats at Anfield this season, was the way in which his team crumbled within a short phase of play. Even against United at home in the league, all three goals were conceded in the space of 16 minutes. The hallmark of any champion side is to see the tough periods through with a serenity which belies the engulfing pressure. Six goals in past two matches are bad enough for City, but conceding six times within 35 minutes is a crisis call.

Interestingly, the manner of losses in the past week has moved Guardiola to ponder whether his tactics are to blame for the defensive collapse. “I’ve dropped a lot of Champions League games in the space of 10 or 15 minutes. We (Bayern in the 2015 semi-final first leg) were playing Barcelona and after 77 minutes it was 0-0, then after 90 minutes – 3-0. This has happened many times – maybe it’s my fault. I have to think about it.”

Guardiola may want to extend his reflections to his overall Champions League record. After lifting the trophy twice in his first three seasons as manager, he has not guided any of his teams into the final since 2011. Although that is by no means an embarrassing record since it includes four semi-final defeats in five campaigns, it is worth recalling that Guardiola was hired by City to establish the club among European giants. A round-of-16 exit against Monaco last year and a quarter-final defeat to Liverpool this year will not elevate the team’s standing.

However, City’s free-scoring spirit has been evident all season. Guardiola alluded to that when he said, “We don’t need to think about how many goals we score, we just need to score the first one.” The floodgates can open. On a night when the pressure will be excruciatingly high, an early goal can prove to be therapeutic for the hosts. It may even drive City to become only the sixth team to come back from a 0-3 defeat in the first leg of a European Cup or Champions League tie.

As the Citizens prepare for what could be a memorable night, one can be sure that there will be no repeat of Guardiola’s tactics from last week when he preferred the security of Ilkay Gundogan to Raheem Sterling’s attacking fire and his side could not muster even a single shot on target. The current status of the tie will demand a gung-ho approach from City. The hosts will perhaps be boosted by the memory of the 5-0 thrashing they dished out to Liverpool earlier this season. However, that scoreline was affected by Sadio Mane’s first-half sending off when City was only 1-0 up.

That afternoon, though, did show Guardiola’s side at its ruthless best. The hosts’ evisceration of the opponent serves as a reminder of the possibilities which lie in front of this City side; the same killer instinct that was conspicuous by absence in the league encounter against United. City’s profligacy ensured that the visitors were not totally out of the contest at half-time on Saturday. Such generosity could prove to be harmful against Liverpool, especially when one considers that a goal conceded will mean that City have to score five times in normal time.

It will perhaps come down to the extent that Guardiola’s players are able to extract gains from phases of intense pressure. Liverpool, under Klopp, have a reputation for collapsing too from time to time. Although such incidents have gradually come down since Virgil van Dijk joined the club, City’s sharp patterns can leave even the best in a tizzy.

To ensure there is no repeat of last week’s scenes, City’s bus will be parked underground. Klopp’s men might be forced to park the proverbial bus on the Etihad pitch as well. However, no other manager has beaten Guardiola seven times and Liverpool can go through with a loss too.

City’s manager, though, remains confident that his side can shock and awe the visitors. If the plan turns out to be successful, Guardiola and his players will recover some of their aura which has been lost over the past week.