English Premier League champions Manchester City will go into today’s game in the UEFA Champions League seeking a win, which will help them seal a spot in the top 25 teams and secure a place in the play off for the next round, OwnGoalNigeria.com reports.
City have not had the best of run in this year’s tournament and they are facing the prospect of exiting the tournament, after letting a two goal lead slip against PSG to lose 2-4 in the last round of games.
Ahead of today’s must win game against Belgium side Club Brugge, head coach Pep Guardiola who hasn’t seen City perform so badly both in domestic and continental games has highlighted the importance of Nigeria international midfielder Raphael Onyedika.
“The patterns defensively are really good, especially with the holding midfielder and creating overlaps in certain positions,” he said. “We have to be focused on the way we have to attack and man-marking, because I don’t know the shape of what they are going to do to create the spaces to attack.”
Rumoured as a potential target for the English Premier League giants in the summer, Onyedika boast of an amazing statistics this season in the UEFA Champions League.
His stats are comparable to those of PSG’s João Neves, who was highlighted by Uefa’s technical report for his performance in the 4-2 win over Man City.
Neves has averaged 10.9 kilometres per match in the Champions League this season, while Onyedika has clocked 10.5km. Onyedika’s passing accuracy has been 90.34 per cent throughout the competition.
Daniel Martins
