Two Things Manchester City Must Do to win the Second Leg vs Real Madrid

Manchester City hold all the cards in their hands as the draw at Real Madrid leaves the second leg at The Etihad as the deciding factor.

Pep Guardiola will be wise to change a few things, not radically, but to give his side a really good chance to win.

Let’s talk two things they can add:

Pace and more Pace

Watching the first leg, the control lineup did what it was supposed to, so with Pep Guardiola tweaking it a bit the inclusion of Phil Foden, Riyad Mahrez or Julian Alvarez.

That means either Bernardo Silva or Ilkay Gundogan need to come off and for me that has to be Bernardo. Give him the weekend start and put in one of these three as his last few actions in the first leg were quite bad both from the turnovers to the lack of concentration.

With an injection of pace the team can stretch the deep laying Madrid backline and hopefully connect more short space passes that open up a winger or Erling Haaland who was double marked almost all match.

Control Small Spaces

Other than that personnel change, the next tweak could be small spaced base as Madrid will probably deploy very deep to avoid KDB’s play making and Erling Haaland’s pace.

That makes shorter 1-2 passes key and as we saw KDB linking with speedier wingers could be the key as could combinations in and around Madrid’s 18 yard box. They need more chances and other than set pieces this is the way to find them, short small space play that lead to an open player or give one a chance to beat one man and score. Grealish and whoever the other winger is need to take advantage of those opportunities.

That will do it, what do you think City could change to win the tie next week? Let us know in the comments.