Champions League Preview and Prediction: Man. City vs Monaco
Published February 21, 2017 by Sol FH
City host underdogs Monaco tonight at 19:45 GMT in the first leg of their Round of 16 bout.
The pressure is on Manchester City to perform well tonight against Monaco. Pep Guardiola has publicly stated that he is taking caution while preparing for the match tonight and knows that critics of the club will "kill them" if they do not move on to the quarter-finals.
Pep Guardiola is no stranger to the late stages of the Champions League. He has managed teams like Barcelona and Bayern Munich and has won the competition twice. Even more impressive, in all of his seven Champions League attempts, he has made it to at least the semi-finals each time. Perhaps this is adding unwanted pressure to his shoulders, but still, he runs one of the best teams in the world and they are playing in one of the most unforgiving stadiums in soccer. The odds are in his favor.
City captain Vincent Kompany will not be fit to face Monaco tonight, still recovering from the injury he suffered back in November. Guardiola is also still deciding whether to play with Claudio Bravo or Willy Caballero in goal.
The only injury for Monaco is midfielder Gabriel Boschilia, which will slow things at mid pitch for the team, but Monaco are an excellent squad and it will surely be an amazing game.
Prediction
Man. City are favorites to win tonight with UK-based online sportsbook, bet365 Sports going as low as 1.60 if they win. If Monaco can pull off a victory tonight, bettors will get 6.00 in profits back. A draw could be a good bet at 4.33, but something is pointing to a City victory 2-1 tonight.
The other Champions League match tonight is at the same time between Bayer and Atletico, which will also be fantastic to watch. Flipping back and forth between channels is not necessary, as bet365 Sports features live audio broadcasting on their site. Punters can enjoy live in play betting for all Champions League matches, which is a great way to boost profits.
