Manchester City will be looking to secure another Champions League win when they travel to Monaco on Wednesday at 8pm (UK time).
Pep Guardiola’s men won their opening game of the group, beating Italian champions Napoli 2-0 at the Etihad Stadium.
Man City predicted lineup vs Monaco
Man City (4-1-4-1): Donnarumma; Lewis, Dias, Gvardiol, O’Reilly; Gonzalez; Silva, Foden, Reijnders, Doku; Haaland.
Guardiola has a good record in the opening gameweeks of the Champions League. The Man City boss has lost just two of his 33 games taking place in the opening two rounds of a Champions League group stage. And his last defeat came in 2021-22.
Monaco had a poor start to the competition, opening with a 4-1 away defeat to Club Brugge. It leaves them third-from-bottom but, of course, there is a long way to go.
Man City team news vs Monaco
Rodri missed the weekend win over Burnley due to a knee injury and is a doubt for the trip to Monaco. Even if the Spaniard does return to fitness, Guardiola is unlikely to take the risk and start him.
Man City will also be without Abdukodir Khusanov, Rayan Ait-Nouri and Omar Marmoush, though the trio aren’t expected to be out for too long. Rayan Cherki is a longer term absentee.
Although Man City haven’t had any fresh injury concerns from their win over Burnley, we know that Guardiola likes to rotate anyway. Erling Haaland up front and Gianluigi Donnarumma are the almost-guaranteed starters.
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Rico Lewis could come in at right-back ahead of Matheus Nunes, despite the latter scoring at the weekend. Bernardo Silva may also look for a start, with Savinho a potential to drop out of the XI.
Nico O’Reilly has made the left-back spot his own after Josko Gvardiol was moved to centre-back. And that’s unlikely to change in midweek.
Haaland’s one-sided record
Haaland scored his 50th Champions League goal in Man City’s 2-0 win over Napoli on Matchday 1. The Norwegian achieved the feat in his 49th game, becoming the fastest player to hit 50 goals in the competition.
But, Haaland hasn’t always had it his way. In fact, his record away from home in the Champions League isn’t as good as some might think.
Just 16 of Haaland’s 50 Champions League goals have come away from home. Only Raul (31%) has scored a lower percentage of their Champions League goals away from home than Haaland’s 32%, among players with 50+ total strikes in the competition.
That wasn’t a problem at Red Bull Salzburg, with Haaland scoring in all three away games in the group stage. For Dortmund, Haaland blanked in two of his seven away Champions League matches — including one at the Etihad.
To complete the circle, Haaland’s first away blank in the Champions League for Man City came against Dortmund. In his first season at Man City, Haaland only scored in two of his five away appearances.
In total, Haaland has scored in just five of his 13 Champions League away games for Man City.