Porto vs Manchester City preview

February 15, 2012
By: Matthew Clarke

The two teams were expected to make it to Champions League knockout stages, but they are now set to battle for an opportunity to continue their European campaign in Europa League.

Porto were placed into an evenly matched Champions League group alongside Zenit, Shakhtar Donetsk and APOEL, but the Dragons finished the competition in 3rd place in the standings.

Vitor Pereira’s side needed to beat Zenit in their final group game to go through and they indeed completely outclassed the Russian champions, but were unlucky not to turn their dominance into goals.

In spite of keeping their domestic showings up to a high standard, the Dragons were not able to keep up with rivals Benfica, and are now trailing the Eagles by five points.

Nonetheless, convincing home wins over Vitoria Setubal and Uniao de Leiria helped the players restore some of the lost confidence and we can now expect another strong performance at Dragao Stadium.

New signing Marc Janko is ineligible having played for Twente in the competition, whereas Kleber and Emidio Rafael are expected to miss out as well. Even so, Porto are 2.80 (9/5) with Ladbrokes to win this game.

Probable starting line-up (4-3-3): Helton – Maicon, Danilo, Rolando, Pereira – Lucho, Fernando, Moutinho – Hulk, Djalma, James.

Manchester City are another side that narrowly missed out on a place in the Champions League knockout stages, so it remains to be seen whether the Citizens will see Europa League as unwelcoming distraction or something more than that.

Roberto Mancini’s side returned to the right track after several under-par performances as they recorded convincing back to back wins over Fulham and Aston Villa.

The Citizens are now looking to extend their winning run to three games in all competitions and you should know bet365 pays 2.80 (9/5) on away win.

With no Premier League games at the weekend, Roberto Mancini is expected to field a strong line-up at Dragao, with Africa Cup of Nations losers Yaya Toure and Kolo Toure both expected to start.

New signing David Pizarro could finally get a chance to start, whereas Samir Nasri, Edin Dzeko and Micah Richards are also pushing for starting places.

Probable starting line-up (4-2-3-1): Hart – Richards, Kompany, K. Toure, Clichy – Y. Toure, Pizarro – Nasri, Aguero, Silva – Balotelli.

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