Manchester City vs. AS Monaco, 2017 Champions League: Preview, team news, and prediction

Tuesday’s round of Champions League matches brings us two teams going head to head to see who can actually start to close in on some of their objectives this season. Both Manchester City and AS Monaco want to make significant progress in Europe this season, but only one will be able to.

Manchester will be hoping to use their home field advantage in this first leg to take a commanding lead, but Monaco’s excellent league form and stout defense won’t make that easy for them. The tactical aspects of a match between Pep Guardiola and Leonardo Jardim are fascinating, and this will be an interesting match to watch unfold.

Manchester City are without Gabriel Jesus after the extraordinary young attacker broke his foot recently, bringing his sensational start to life in Manchester to an abrupt stop. Three defenders are also in less than perfect health, with Vincent Kompany out, plus Aleksandar Kolarov and Gaël Clichy nursing various injuries. And of course, Ilkay Gündogan is still out long-term with a major knee injury suffered before Christmas.

Monaco will be without Jemerson via suspension and also will miss Gabriel Boschilia after the young attacking midfielder suffered a cruciate ligament injury. Three others — Guido Carrillo, Andrea Raggi, and Tiemoue Bakayoko — are in different degrees of doubt with various injuries, but the guaranteed absences of Jemerson and Boschilia will hurt Monaco’s gameplan.

Manchester City (4-3-3): Claudio Bravo; Aleksandar Kolarov, John Stones, Nicolas Otamendi, Bacary Sagna; David Silva, Yaya Touré, Kevin De Bruyne; Leroy Sané, Sergio Agüero, Raheem Sterling

Monaco (4-4-2): Danijel Subašić; Benjamin Mendy, Kamil Glik, Andrea Raggi, Almamy Touré; Thomas Lemar, João Moutinho, Fabinho, Bernardo Silva; Valère Germain, Radamel Falcao

Fabinho vs. David Silva — Fabinho’s presence in midfield has been huge for Monaco this season, but when he squares off against David Silva he’ll be in for one of his biggest challenges yet. If he can get the better of the Spanish attacker, it will be huge for Monaco’s defense behind him, taking a valuable weapon away from them — but if he fails, it will almost certainly doom his team.

Sergio Agüero vs. himself — Agüero’s struggles this season working under Pep Guardiola have been long documented, but with the injury to Gabriel Jesus, there’s little choice but to go back to the well. If Agüero can keep his focus on the task at hand and not get frustrated when things go against him, he can be an incredible threat against Monaco’s defense and has the potential to single-handedly win this match for City.

This has all the makings of an excellent, tactical match, but that doesn’t mean it will be a high-scoring one. This seems like a game that will break one way or the other, and the home field advantage should be enough for Manchester City to win 2-1.