Manuel Pellegrini has urged his Manchester City stars to take the game to Bayern Munich in Tuesday’s must-win Champions League encounter.
City, who are priced at 3.27 to win the match, are set to host the German giants in round five of this season’s elite club competition after another poor group campaign that looks likely to end in failure once again.
The north-west outfit have taken just two points to date and sit rock bottom of Group E after some listless displays in the competition.
Things are hardly likely to get any easier when the Bavarians come calling, as they have already qualified for the knock-out stage with four straight wins to sit at the top of the group.
Pep Guardiola’s side, who can be backed at 2.10 to win, beat City 1-0 at the Allianz Arena when they met earlier in the group and have shown no signs of their form dipping both domestically and in Europe.
But Pellegrini is refusing to throw in the towel with both Roma and CSKA Moscow only two points above them in the standings.
With Bayern’s quality in all areas of the pitch it is unlikely that the Citizens will be able to play them off the park at the Etihad Stadium but the Chilean tactician has urged his men to cause as many problems as they can for the Bundesliga heavyweights to see how they respond to pressure.
“We know we must have the personality to be aggressive against Bayern from the beginning,” he said. “We have to try to recover the ball as soon as we can with good pressing and then try not to lose it with easy passes.
“They must become a little bit tired trying to recover the ball and must not be fresh when they counter-attack.”
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