We have trouble tho when we are pressed at high tempo, Arsenal did this for 20 minutes yesterday and we were just looking for the ball and kept losing it. Luckily they could hold their pressing up it is tiring as hell thats when we started to be more comfortable on thre ball a bit.
Bayern is no Arsenal tho, they are at home and probably think this game is crucial for them to have a chance for finish top of the group and they are right in that just like we would make an important step with a win here. Getting trough tonext stage is great but 1st place and 2nd place can give you an easy opponent/very hard opponent next round. Real/Barca/Atletico all looking to finish 1st in their group maybe Dortmund too, if we are first we are 100% avoid them. If only 2nd then with Platini its more of 100% we get them.
But this is a sick group with Roma, we dont have lot of chances to make mistakes and still survive, this is where mistakes punished easily and we know from 2011-12 and 2012-13 group stages, hope we learnt of those situations.
We played away games to Bayern already, so we know what to expect from them. Dont like that both times we went 2-0 behind, last time we turned around very well only to find out we didnt know the goal difference rules...
Another problem can be is Pellegrini cant be near to the bench or team at HT, but in these big games every 10 minutes you need to change formation, players, who to track more etc...
I dont expect to win, but I hope we will not be total underdogs and lose 2-0 or 3-1. That would be dissapointing. Bayern is world class team, Guardiola maybe changing them to a strange direction but he has tons of CL experience won it a few times too, and he knows too that 1st place of this group is very valuable.
I expect Roma to beat CSKA away, so next round City-Roma is crucial to win if we drop any points in Munich.
Only strategy we can beat Bayern is counter attack, finish the few chances we have and defend extremely well. I dont think our defending is really great vs top teams, we conceded 5 goals vs them last season in two CL games.
Start again with a midfield duo and they will just dominate the shit out of us big time. Guardiola likes if his team has the ball 90% posession, it wont be this much of course, but 75-25 is not impossible even vs us from them. Its gonna be a long game, we have to be 100% ready mentally.
Dont know how rotation goes as the 3 hard games we are in needs some rotation for sure. Wouldnt play Zabaleta 3 times so when Sagna starts vs Bayern or Chelsea? Will Kolarov start? I would throw in Mangala but it seems like he will only start vs Wednesday but wonder can an old Demichelis play 3 intense games like these in a row.
Fernando hopefully makes a magic comeback from injury if not it has to be Fernandinho-Milner-Yaya trio with Lampard on bench to have at least one CM option on bench.
Silva, Aguero surely starts, I would go with Navas with this one. And would really think on Caballero too, I dont trust Hart very much.