Bacary Sagna admits Manchester City lacked fight in Monaco defeat

Pep Guardiola’s men were eliminated from the competition on away goals after a 6-6 aggregate scoreline, but had one foot into the quarterfinals until a 77th-minute Tiemoue Bakayoko header sent City crashing out.

City went out of Europe after losing their last-16 second-leg tie away in Monaco 3-1, with the hosts qualifying for the quarter-finals on away goals after the overall tie finished level at 6-6. He pretty much had a front five ahead of the Brazilian.

On paper the Sky Blues might have had the edge, but once the game started Monaco utterly dominated proceedings and were 2-0 up on the night before 30 minutes had been played. Monaco could have had a greater lead by the interval.

The City boss appears to be trading on his reputation rather than results, says James Ducker of the Daily Telegraph.

“Then they don’t defend the set piece properly”.

The stats back up the selection: Monaco’s home record in all competitions is W20-D2-L1 this season, their sole slip-up coming at the hands of Lyon (3-1) in late December.

That’s some praise from Guardiola, considering he led Barcelona to two Champions League trophies and three Spanish titles with a brand of attacking football that thrilled fans around the world. The good news for Monaco is that on Monday Falcao was back in training, going through a group session before his own individual fitness training and further gym work.

Of course, Sterling is more used to being at the other end of the pitch.

Kylian Mbappe starred in Falcao’s absence. Bernardo Silva is another player who will attract big money offers, as will Thomas Lemar, Djibril Sidibe, Benjamin Mendy and Fabinho. If you want to see this exciting young Monaco team in action, you might need to be quick.

20 – Since the current format of the tournament has been in place, there have been 20 instances of a side scoring three or more away goals in the first leg of a UEFA Champions League knockout tie and all of them have progressed.

Not one shot towards goal was made by Manchester City players. But chance after chance was wasted, including a close one from Sergio Aguero that looked like a sure bet, and City looked done. We knew they had quality players, we knew they had risky players. Manchester City switched up its tactics in the second half, with Pep Guardiola moving Kevin de Bruyne back in a bid to control possession.

“It will be very tough against Monaco, they’re doing extremely well at the moment, but we are very positive and if we beat them we are through to the quarter-finals”.