edit..........not worthy of the clicks
Manchester City’s quest to be a dominant European force lives on into the last 16 of the Champions League.
For the third time in four seasons, the Sheikh Mansour project appeared to be falling apart before the knockout stage could be reached until Samir Nasri stepped up with a 60th-minute rocket that left Morgan De Sanctis little chance.
Until then City’s had been a disjointed display against Serie A’s second-placed side, who continued to cast City as a band of naive millionaire footballers led by a manager, Manuel Pellegrini, whose tactical nous at this level is questionable.
The manager could quite rightly point to last season’s campaign when he guided City to the last 16 for the first time. Yet the vulnerabilities that were exposed when being eliminated by Barcelona at that stage have still not been addressed despite this result and passage into the draw for the knockout round came courtesy of CSKA Moscow’s defeat to Bayern Munich.
The main charge is that the front and back of this City team can be disparate parts, as if attack and defence have been grafted together awkwardly via a midfield who are fine going forward but shaky when asked to protect.
This contest was studded with the sight of one of Rudi García’s team running at the visitors as if they had merely turned up to watch. Gervinho, Maicon and José Holebas all made hay while the Stadio Olimpico lights shone. They knifed through Pellegrini’s side with ease.
Maicon, the former City right-back, took one direct sprint at the heart of the City defence then unloaded a shot. A Gervinho unrecognisable from the struggler of his Arsenal days raced along the right into yards of space in an act of potency that was a snapshot of how City have been undone this season in this competition.
The atmosphere was vibrant and febrile and featured burning red beacons and loud firecrackers that rendered the air before kick-off to leave an odour of gun power drifting across the stadium.
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City had hoped that could start with a bang. Instead it was Roma who began, exposing the weaknesses of Pellegrini’s team. A Gervinho skip behind the defence won a corner. Moments later, Holebas shredded the City rearguard to have clear sight of Joe Hart’s goal. The shot beat the goalkeeper but Pablo Zabaleta could clear.
Francesco Totti had undone City in the earlier match at the Etihad Stadium when galloping into space to score the equaliser. Here, the 38-year-old was again bewitching the men in blue, the dummy he gave to Martín Demichelis near halfway making a mug of the defender and allowing Roma to pour forward once more.
When roving forward City are difficult to halt. Twice Roma were turned with the most dangerous of these moves. A Gaël Clichy cross found Edin Dzeko but he struggled to direct his header on target.
Beforehand Dzeko declared he wanted to be the hero in the enforced absence of Sergio Agüero. The wish to fill the vacuum left by City’s main striker, with 19 goals this season, was admirable. Agüero had made all the difference in ensuring City’s team stayed in the competition and maintained their domestic title defence.
But what Pellegrini required was for whole XI to turn in a star performance, while the manager needed to show strategic subtleties beyond the mantra of “attack, attack and still more attack” if this one dimensional ploy did not work.
Not for the first time, the 3-2 win over Bayern Munich a fortnight ago had been the Agüero show. City needed to prove they were no one-man band on an evening when the stakes could hardly have been higher for the club.
In the week the latest £200m investment went live with Monday’s opening of the City academy, the very least required here was a victory.
The challenge for City had been made harder when David Silva, Steven Jovetic and Vincent Kompany were unable to start because of injury, with the latter not able even to make the bench. This made the suspension being served by Yaya Touré for being sent off at CSKA appear even costlier.
The side the manager named still looked formidable and really should have been up to beating Roma at the venue where they had been handed a 7-1 hiding by Bayern.
As the game wore on the longstanding deficiencies continued to surface as City’s defence were rocked. Kostas Manolas headed against a post and then Hart missed a regulation ball from a corner and Demichelis was forced to clear from near the goalline.
If City are be serious contenders in the competition’s latter stages Pellegrini has to start shutting up shop and picking his moments to be gung ho.
