What Manchester City Can Learn from Their Champions League Campaign This Season

City crashed out of them Champions League in the quarter final round to a very impressive Lyon, who were massive underdogs going into the bout but proved many wrong and turned over Pep Guardiola’s City 3-1 in Lisbon. With the Champions League drawing to a close last night where the favourites Bayern Munich outmuscled Paris Saint German in the final 1-0, we take a look at what Manchester City can learn from the final and this season’s campaign.

Manchester City were knocked out of the Champions League at the quarter-final stage for the third time in three seasons, after defeat to Lyon.

— Sky Sports News (@SkySportsNews) August 15, 2020

Guardiola brought in 3 centre backs for the quarter final clash against Lyon which we thought was very puzzling as Pep has always stuck with his 4-3-3 in the past – a formation that has been so successful for him throughout his trophy littered career. By doing this, Lyon were able to exploit the full-back areas of the pitch later in the second half in which Moussa Dembele found space and punished the in tactically inexperienced defence of Manchester City.

This takes us on to our next point of that the full back has become such a vital position to be able to win championships now; and this has been shown with the Premier League title with Liverpool and the Champions League with Bayern Munich as both have some of the best modern day fullbacks. Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson optimise this with defensive masterclass and having to tuck in, but also the ability to be a ball playing defender and happy to pick up the ball anywhere on the pitch and spray it to the opposite side of the pitch at any moment.

Bayern’s fullbacks in Joshua Kimmich and Alphonso Davies also have similar skills to the Liverpool pairing but have different playing skills and quality but balance out each side of the Bayern line up. Kimmich offers solid, quality defending who is more than comfortable on the ball having seen him also play defensive midfield. Davies offers sheer power and pace, bombing up and down the left side and has now confirmed his place as one of the best left backs in the world.

Now that the football season has drawn to a close and we have to wait until Mid-September for the launch of the main leagues again in Europe, we are starting to see a trend similar to the one of when lockdown restrictions were introduced in which many punters from the betting market have moved to gambling markets to receive the best offers with many at Max Casinos. These continue to prove popular and this trend is likely to continue, moving into the start of the next Premier league campaign.