Manchester City vs FC Basel
Competition/Round: 2017-18 UEFA Champions League, Round of 16 2nd leg
First leg result: Manchester City 4-0 FC Basel
Man City team news: Fernandinho (doubtful), Raheem Sterling (doubtful), Benjamin Mendy (out), David Silva (out, personal reasons)
Basel team news: Taulant Xhaka (suspended)
Date/Time: Wednesday, March 7th, 2018, 7.45pm GMT (UK), 8.45pm WAT (Nigeria), 2.45pm EST, 11.45am PST (USA), 1.15am IST (India, next day)
Venue: Etihad Stadium, Manchester, England
Referee: Pavel Královec (CZE)
How to watch on TV: BT Sport 3 (UK), Fox Sports 2 (USA), SuperSport 6 (Nigeria), TSN2 (Canada), SONY TEN 1 (India), others
How to stream: BT Sport Live (UK), Fox Sports GO (USA), TSN GO (Canada), FuboTV (7-day free trial, click here to sign up)
After a fantastic seven days in the domestic fronts with a League Cup trophy and two dominant Premier League wins over Arsenal and Chelsea, Manchester City turn their attention to the Champions League and the second leg of their Round of 16 tie with FC Basel.
If you don’t remember, City simply destroyed the Swiss side in the first leg, winning 4-0 with scary ease. The tie is over and both teams know it, so the second leg is pretty much a formality. There’s always a chance for a shocking result and this is Typical City, but it’s really, really, really, really hard to expect anything different from Pep Guardiola and his men reaching the quarter-finals.
Pep is expected to rotate his squad and rest key players like Kyle Walker, Kevin De Bruyne, David Silva and Sergio Agüero. Because of the depth of this squad, though, the eleven players on the pitch on Wednesday night will be more than good enough to give the Etihad crowd a good show and complete the job.
POSSIBLE LINEUPS
Man City (4-3-3): Ederson; Danilo, Stones, Kompany, Zinchenko; Gundogan, Touré, Foden; Bernardo, Jesus, Sané
Basel (3-4-3): Vaclík; Lacroix, Suchý, Balanta; Lang, Zuffi, Serey Dié, Riveros; Stocker, Oberlin, Elyounoussi
PREDICTION
It’s really hard to expect City to play nowhere near their best with such a big first leg lead and the expected changes to the team, so a draw is very likely here: I’ll go with a 1-1 and City through without any problems.