I'm really looking forward to this game, I think it's a great chance for us to ruffle some feathers of european elite especially with pep coming in next year. I think the benefits of doing well in this competition in modern football is massive and underestimated by a lot of our fans. In 2012 when Chelsea won the Champions League and we won the title they beat us to the signing of Hazard, because attracting players from around the world becomes a more achievable task on the back of a successful european campaign. (Although I do understand the scepticism of a lot the fans surrounding this tournament, I think this is what football has become centred around big glamourous matches where you have the worlds best head to head).
I think at points this season we have played at a level that would give us a good chance of getting a result tonight, however there has been no sort of consistency and to be honest I have no idea which team will show up. Over the past few years we've been successful domestically and not been able to convert that into performances in Europe but things seemed to have flipped a bit this year with some of our best performances coming away in Europe (ironic considering how terrible our away form has been this year) so hopefully that streak continues. Something that worries me is the fact that this year we've failed to beat big teams in both the league and Juventus in the group stage. As much as I like Pellegrini I am glad he will be going at the end of the year and just hope that he can muster up the kind of fight tonight that Mancini would've done and see us into the top 4 (he always seemed to get the team fired up for key games).
If I was manager I would go for:
Hart - If pain free, just hope he's sharp and his distribution is ok
Sagna - I think offers a bit more pace and has been more defensively solid than Zabba this year
Otamendi
Mangala - Both CB need big games for me, hopefully the physical challenge of Ibra is a task they can rise to (Also think they are more suited to this but we'll see)
Clichy - Please don't play Kolarov.....
Fernando
Fernandinho - These two have been at the heart of some of our best European performances in the past couple years
Navas - Not my favourite player however does work hard and tracks back, offers width, brings balance and actually against the rags I thought was our biggest attacking threat (shows how bad we were)
Silva - For me he has to play in the middle, I want things to go through him and when he picks up the ball in midfield have De Bruyne, Navas and Aguero giving him options in front of him
De Bruyne - A big plus that he's back always looks to move the ball forward and is a big goal threat which is important if you have Navas on the right as he offers none
Aguero - Capable of anything on his day let's give him some decent service and see what can happen
On reflection with the exception of Kompany and Sterling (who in Europe has been key) it's close enough to what I'd call our best european team. I think whats been disappointing this year is the lack of fight in our team. I remember the FA Cup match under Mancini after the 6-1, Kompany had been sent off we were 3-0 down at HT and we came out put up a fight maybe should've nicked the replay, ultimately we lost but as long as there no room to question character and desire thats what I want. Let's get behind our team and manager and go there to get a result CITD.
